The right to bigotry
Well, the usual media suspects have wasted no time in attacking Rand Paul for his opposition to the part of the Civil Rights Act that prohibits private businesses from discriminating on the basis of race (and some other stuff). They've implied that such a stance is racist. That's interesting. So I guess I support the right of skinheads to hold a rally, I must be racist, too. I guess if I support the right of homophobes to write hateful blog posts about gay people, I must be homophobic, too. And if I support the right of pot heads to smoke weed, I must also be a pot head. If you're the kind of person that equates defending someone's rights with supporting that person's personal beliefs, I really don't know if I can help you. I suggest you go back to chewing on your crayons and stuffing Cheerios in your nose.
But more importantly, those on the left are out in force defending the morality of the state's using violence to compel certain actions on the part of business owners who have not aggressed against anyone. That's right: they're saying that partial slavery is okay. They're saying that, because they don't like the way some people choose to peacefully (if unpleasantly) use their property, violence may be employed to force them to use it in a different way. They're saying you don't have a right to be a bigot.
Well, you do have that right as a human being. And others have the right to boycott, shun, and ostracize you.
I don't have much to say that hasn't already been said in places like these:
Rand Paul and the Civil Rights Act: Was he right?
Defend the Scoundrels, Rand!
Which Institution is More Enlightened?
But let me be very clear about this. If you use violence or the threat thereof to compel someone to provide goods or services to someone else, you are an aggressor and a criminal. If you support such criminal actions, well, let's just say you've got some remedial work to do in the area of ethics.
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Update on George
Carlos Miller has this post today about the latest with George Donnelly's ordeal. Organized crime is not somehow made legitimate by calling itself "the government." This insanity must end.
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Federal agents attack and kidnap liberty activist
Maybe this is optimistic, but we may be witnessing the beginning of the end of the state, the violent death throes of an aggressive criminal organization that senses its own impending collapse. This past Tuesday, libertarian/voluntaryist activist George Donnelly was attacked by federal agents (and subsequently kidnapped by them) while filming a confrontation between an agent and one of his fellow activists (initiated by the agent) during an outreach effort to hand out information about jury nullification and the Fully Informed Jury Association. Summaries can be found here, here, here, here, and here.
He's out of federal captivity now, but is under house arrest and facing potentially serious charges for his terrible crime of filming a federal goon harassing another innocent person. George is now seeking legal and financial assistance in his fight against this injustice. See here and here.
It would be nice if George is able to not only get these ridiculous charges dropped but also succeed in suing these cretins for their violent actions. Unfortunately, such suits rarely work. One of the ways that a free society could deal with aggressors and other anti-social individuals who refuse to participate in voluntary arbitration and restitution procedures is through ostracism: simply refusing to associate or do business with the offenders, including not selling them groceries, not giving them loans, not providing them with utilities, etc. Given this, and knowing that George is a fan of ostracism, I think it would be great if someone was able to identify the aggressing U.S. Marshalls (some are visible in photos taken at the time) in this instance and launch a campaign to publicly shame and ostracize them. Let's show the state that its aggression will not be tolerated by civilized society.
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Public or private police?
Nice piece on public versus private cops over at Cop Block: Public vs Private Police; Which Would You Choose?
Summed up nicely with this line toward the end: "...it’s beyond me why anyone would allow a monopoly on something as important as protection."
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Hoppe on the state as exploitation firm
In The Economics and Ethics of Private Property, Hans-Hermann Hoppe has this to say about the nature of the state and how it continues to exist:
While productive enterprises come into or go out of existence because of voluntary support or its absence, a ruling class never comes to power because there is a demand for it, nor does it abdicate when abdication is demonstrably demanded. One cannot say by any stretch of the imagination that homesteaders, producers, savers and contractors have demanded their expropriation. They must be coerced into accepting it, and this proves conclusively that the exploitation firm is not in demand at all. Nor can one say that a ruling class can be brought down by abstaining from transactions with it in the same way as one can bring down a productive enterprise. For the ruling class acquires its income through nonproductive and noncontractual transactions and thus is unaffected by boycotts. Rather, what makes the rise of an exploitation firm possible, and what alone can in turn bring it down is a specific state of public opinion or, in Marxist terminology, a specific state of class consciousness.
An exploiter creates victims, and victims are potential enemies. It is possible that this resistance can be lastingly broken down by force in the case of a group of men exploiting another group of roughly the same size. However, more than force is needed to expand exploitation over a population many times its own size. For this to happen, a firm must also have public support. A majority of the population must accept the exploitative actions as legitimate. This acceptance can range from active enthusiasm to passive resignation. But it must be acceptance in the sense that a majority must have given up the idea of actively or passively resisting any attempt to enforce nonproductive and noncontractual property acquisitions. The class consciousness must be low, undeveloped and fuzzy. Only as long as this state of affairs lasts is there still room for an exploitative firm to prosper even if no actual demand for it exists. Only if and insofar as the exploited and expropriated develop a clear idea of their own situation and are united with other members of their class through an ideological movement which gives expression to the idea of a classless society where all exploitation is abolished, can the power of the ruling class be broken. Only if, and insofar as, a majority of the exploited public becomes consciously integrated into such a movement and accordingly displays a common outrage over all nonproductive or noncontractual property acquisitions, shows a contempt for everyone who engages in such acts, and deliberately contributes nothing to help make them successful (not to mention actively trying to obstruct them), can its power be brought to crumble.
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