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I’m usually one of the first 3 or 4 voters at my polling place. This morning, I arrived 15 minutes before it opened, and was still voter #12. By the time I got out of there, the line going in was getting fairly long. Looks like it may be a record turnout day.

Then again, it could be due to the delays. Missouri outlawed “straight ticket” voting last year. All over the state, half-blind oldsters who are used to just looking for the picture of the donkey or the elephant, punching their ticket and getting the hell out of there are now having to laboriously um, read their ballots. I don’t really see it making a difference in terms of an informed electorate, etc. It’s just another annoyance.

Also, we’ve got the touch screen machines now — that’s slowing down voters and election workers both. Something about them feels … sinister. In theory, you can request a paper punch card ballot instead, but those didn’t arrive at my polling place until about the time I finished casting my votes on the touch screens.

Frank Gilmour for Senate, Charles Baum for State Auditor, Robb Cunningham for US House, Ted Brown for County Executive. Since those guys are all Libertarians and friends of mine, those votes were easy.

The votes for State Senator, State Representative and County Council were easy, too: The only candidate for each seat was the Democratic Party’s nominee. And to be honest, we could do worse than Rita Days, Esther Haywood and Hazel Erby. Any Republican district in the state does so on a routine basis.

I wouldn’t have felt bad voting for Lacy Clay for Congress, either, if he hadn’t had a Libertarian opponent. He voted against the war on Iraq, against the Enabling Military Commissions Act, and against making the Anti-American Gestapo USA PATRIOT Act permanent. He opposes amending the US Constitution to make discrimination against homosexuals the Supreme Law of the Land — and his response to my constituent inquiry on that issue was not pro forma. He’s not good on every issue, but he’s good on most of the ones I care about lately.

After that, it was “no” right down the line on the question of retaining various judges in office, and that was it. I made one mistake (almost let one of those judges creep back in with my support!), the touch screen let me correct it and then chattered a bunch of stuff on the “paper trail” tape, and I was done.

If you haven’t voted yet, read Jim Henley’s Election Day article before you go. Remember: A vote for a Republican, at least 99% of the time, is a vote against America.

In any widespread debate among human beings, there tends to be a portrayal of the situation as a binary conflict. As an example, let's take "democrat vs. republican" - not that the content matters here, but it's a common example that most of you will be familiar with. But this translates to gender, religion, sexuality, and many other human "dialogues" (note the already implicit binary)... Most

Even though I thought I was decided on the matter, certainpeople have encouraged me to rethink my justifications for abstaining from the vote. Although I do feel it is immoral to participate in a process that appoints a representative who can use force against you, Charles Johnson brought up an interesting counterargument:

Well, I think the problem here is that you’re giving too much credit to the State’s own legitimating myths. There are cases in which participating in a process means tacitly accepting the legitimacy of the proceeding, and tacitly consenting to the outcome. But voting, at least, is not among them. For participation to count as consent, even tacit consent, it must be the case that refusing to participate would have exempted you from the outcome. Otherwise, I can’t see how the “permission” you give to the government by voting is any different from the “permission” you give a mugger to take your money instead of your life when you hand over your wallet.

That is a good point, although I argued that what matters was how my vote was perceived socially vis a vis my long term goal of abolishing the State. It also raises the question: how should I regard my participation if I do vote? I don’t feel it’s honest to say that I’m simply taking part in a meaningless ritual - clearly, it’s important or I would not go out of my way to do it. I don’t like the self-defense argument, because it still implies that I’m participating in a mechanism for oppression - whether or not my consent is given - and that betrays the sense of solidarity that I feel anarchists should embrace and promote.

However, I can’t deny that this election is important. Allen is absolutely and totally unacceptable, and there’s been worse politicians than Webb. Furthermore, I really think that voting against the marriage amendment to the Virginia constitution is not nearly as awful as voting for a politician. Honestly, I wish I had more time to turn these matters over in my head, and since there’s only today I have to act, I’m leaning towards going to the polls.

What do you think I should do? If you read this blog, you know a lot of my principles and opinions. Given that, which is the best course for me to take? I wish I was better decided on this matter, and hate to throw these questions out like this, but I am interested in persuasive arguments.

1. Abstain from the vote entirely.
2. Vote only on the marriage amendment.
3. Vote on both the amendment and the senate seat.

I'm currently reading John Locke's "Second Treatise of Civil Government" for a - both painfully frustraiting but still very inspiring - lecture called "Introduction to Political Philosophy." Here's an interesting quote which, taken out of context, might suggest an anarchist Locke.

I easily grant, that civil government is the proper remedy for the inconveniencies of the state of nature, which must certainly be great, where men may be judges in their own case, since it is easy to be imagined, that he who was so unjust as to do his brother an injury, will scarce be so just as to condemn himself for it: but I shall desire those who make this objection, to remember, that absolute monarchs are but men; and if government is to be the remedy of those evils, which necessarily follow from men's being judges in their own cases, and the state of nature is therefore not to be endured, I desire to know what kind of government that is, and how much better it is than the state of nature, where one man, commanding a multitude, has the liberty to be judge in his own case, and may do to all his subjects whatever he pleases, without the least liberty to any one to question or controul those who execute his pleasure and in whatsoever he doth, whether led by reason, mistake or passion, must be submitted to. Much better it is in the state of nature, wherein men are not bound to submit to the unjust will of another. And if he that judges, judges amiss in his own, or any other case, he is answerable for it to the rest of mankind.

It's in his description of the state of nature (Chap. II, Sec. 13.), which he distinguishes from later forms of organization. Of course, he doesn't defend anarchism in his Treatise. I just found it interesting, because his argument echoes some of the common defenses of anarchism.

Tags: anarchism, libertarianism, John Locke

Here’s how the government is keeping you safe from terrorism:

Within the security community, there’s been a lot of talk about security theater when it comes to the airline business. In the last few years, plenty of new security measures have been put in place — but just because we can see or deal with new security measures (dump your liquids, everyone!), does it actually make us any safer. While there’s been a ton of attention paid in the last week to a security researcher who showed just how easy it was for anyone to create their own boarding pass to get past the security check point, a much scarier story is sent in by Damon, who points out for all of the security changes, new technologies and new processes it doesn’t do a damn bit of good if the TSA screeners let people with weapons through the checkpoint. That’s exactly what happened at Newark airport, where a secret shopper (or should that be secret bomber?) test found that 20 out of 22 weapons got through the security clearing process. Now aren’t you glad that you have to remove your shoes and can’t bring a bottle of water on board any more? If we’re serious about air travel security, then it’s about time that we actually focused on security — not play-acting to make people think that something’s been done.

Here’s Tim Lee’s communique from the Technology Liberation Front:

The fundamental problem here is that the TSA has no particular incentive to make air travel safer. They have to act like they’re responding to terrorist threats, but as long as they appear to be doing something, it doesn’t matter if any of their security measures actually accomplish anything. And, not surprisingly, it appears that to a first approximation, they don’t.

—Tim Lee, Technology Liberation Front (2006-11-02): Oops

Your thought for the day comes courtesy of M. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon; this one goes out to all the folks waiting in line to get and protected by the TSA:

To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality.

—P.-J. Proudhon, General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century (trans. John Beverly Robinson), Epilogue ¶ 39

Further reading:

• GT 2004-08-09: Airport! 2004

Sometimes, it’s just too much. Not days after I called out a well-known capitalist for his anti-market rhetoric, Right Thinking Girl - that most vulgar of vulgar capitalists - gives me some more material along the same lines. And both bitch fests are about hotels and eco-friendly policies.  It’s great to throw your money around and cheer about capitalism and shopping and ‘Mercka, until - oops! - the market aggregates values and demand in a way you don’t approve. Then it’s those evil liberals allying with Al Qaeda to deny you fresh sheets.

But screw going to a different hotel that caters to your high-falutin’, jet-setting, glamorous lifestyle. You’re a Republican, and America OWES you a hotel - in your price range - that doesn’t conserve resources or appeal to your non-existent environmental consciousness. I mean, wake up, ‘Mercka - is George W. Bush not president? Hello?

I swear to God, her and I are not colluding - she actually writes this stuff. I just happen to make fun of it. By all means, go check out her blog and have yourself a laugh.

These seem a lot like war crimes to me.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=18112

"Ramy's death added to a toll still rising after Israel's monthlong war against Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon. The object he picked up was a cluster bomblet -- one of hundreds of thousands dropped by Israel on the region before an August 14 ceasefire.

During the war, nearly 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 157 Israelis, mostly soldiers, were killed. And lives are still being lost.

Between August 14 and October 8, around 20 people were killed in southern Lebanon by cluster munitions. Land mine activists said last month that cluster bombs are still killing or injuring three to four civilians a day, a third of them children. "

(Story thanks to a tip from Lisa Casanova.)

It’s early November; that means it’s time for yet another isolated incident at a Halloween party on yet another college campus. This one comes to us thanks to the brothers of Sigma Chi at Johns Hopkins University:

BALTIMORE - Johns Hopkins University suspended a fraternity Monday afternoon following a racially themed Halloween party Saturday night at an off-campus house.

Members of the Black Student Union and supporters rallied on North Charles Street in front of the campus, speaking out against the local Sigma Chi chapter and perceived racial hostility on campus. Hopkins is investigating the party and said the national Sigma Chi fraternity has imposed a 45-day suspension of the chapter’s activities and will conduct its own investigation.

The uproar began shortly after the Halloween in the ’Hood party was advertised on the Web site Facebook.com. The invitation encouraged racial-stereotyping costumes, included references to the late attorney Johnnie Cochran and O.J. Simpson, and prefaced descriptions of Baltimore as a ghetto, the hood and the HIV pit with a four-letter epithet.

The invitation was attributed to Justin H. Park, who is listed as a Sigma Chi Class of 2008 member on the fraternity’s Web site.

Johns Hopkins said in a written statement that the Greek life coordinator had told the chapter president last week that he found the advertisement racist and offensive, and directed the fraternity to withdraw the advertising immediately, but it reappeared without the coordinator’s knowledge, in an altered but still offensive form.

… A small group of black students went to the party and said white students were dressed as pimps, prostitutes — and slaves. Outside the front door of the house in the 200 block of East 33rd Street was a plastic skeleton dressed as a pirate, hanging from a rope noose.

And then as you walked up to the house, you heard fake gunshots — as if there is a gun fight in this neighborhood every night, said freshman Blake Edwards, 18. The noose is extremely offensive and makes a mockery of the minority students that go to school here. Several of the girls I went with left in tears.

The entire city of Baltimore should be offended by this.

—Ron Cassie, The Examiner (2006-10-31): Johns Hopkins fraternity suspended after racially themed Halloween party

Here is the text of one of the invitations posted to FaceBook by Justin Park. I don’t have access to FaceBook so my information is limited, but I gather that this is the revised version:

OMG RACIST officially invites you to this delightful gaiety in honor of the last day of October, held in the exquisite metropolis paradise that we affectionately refer to as the mother-f*cking ghetto, aka the hood or as I like to call it, the hiv pit.

Refreshments include Foie Gras, Belgian Caviar, and Cambodian Breast Milk.

Ornate antique bathtubs full of Evian and Perrier will be provided for your bathing pleasure.

Admission to this bonanza is contingent on appropriate accourtrement - regional clothing from our locale is recommended. These include, but are not limited to, fur coats, copious amounts of so-called bling bling ice ice grills, hoochie hoops, white Tee’s and Air Force Onez.

There will be special accolades to those attired in the most conniving and despicable outfits.

OMG RACIST would like you to know that he does not condone or advocate racism, fascism, communism, consumerism, capitalism, terrorism, organism(s), sexism, womanism, jism, or any other -ism’s.

For the record, we would like to thank our founding fathers for incorporating the first amendment into the venerable Bill of Rights, and Johnnie L. Cochran for being a true homie and getting Orenthal Simpson, commonly known as OJ, acquitted.

ps we STILL don’t discriminate against hoodrats, skig skags, or scallywops.

—Justin Park, quoted at GreekChat bulletin board

Just about every year, right around now. I get to hear the same thing again: a bunch of students, most of them white, threw a party involving blackface costumes and other forms of crude racist caricature. It happened at Auburn—at least twice. It happened at Ole Miss. It happened at Syracuse. It happened at Oklahoma State. It happened at Stetson. It doesn’t always happen at a fraternity party, but it often does. Sometimes the kids opt for broad pastiches of gangsta images that they’ve picked up from MTV. Sometimes they opt for explicit references to the history of slavery and militant white supremacy. Sometimes—as it seems happened in Baltimore—they opt for both. The pattern is established, and the reactions are reliable. While University administrators are busy rushing to make a public example of whoever was caught throwing the party, and anxiously insisting (to anybody who cares to listen) that this is an isolated incident, not representative of the campus culture, etc. etc. etc., it’s left to those who know something about what actually goes on on campus (usually Black students or faculty) to point out, yet again, that these things happen in a broader context, that this is nothing new, that things like this happen all the time on campus, and that the only thing special about this case is that the story went public. Then a few months later, everything settles back down, the administration eases or completely reverses its disciplinary actions against the fraternity, and we wait until late next October or early next November, when exactly the same damned thing happens at yet another Halloween party somewhere else.

Just this last weekend I was driving to work, just south of the University of Michigan campus, looking at the party-goers wandering to campus Halloween parties in their costumes. And I drove through the streets wondering whether I’d be seeing the Klan robes, the nooses, the blacked-up white boys dressed as slaves, or the thug poses and afro wigs and the insufferable grins. And wondering, if I didn’t see it, whether it was going on somewhere else, out of my sight, where it would hit the papers in a few days. I was worrying about all these things when I should have been enjoying the simple, silly joy of people dressing up for the night because every fucking year I can fully expect to hear another story about another racist party, just about now. Over and over again.

Thanks a lot, guys. You have officially ruined Halloween.

This election will be my first as a confirmed anarchist. Since I live in Virginia, the campaign here has been so shrill - with 90% of that shrillness coming from one candidate - that I’m very tempted to vote soley to push Allen and the Republican’s obnoxiousness out of office. Reading two essays, however, reaffirmed me of my beliefs.

The first is one my friend Brady (a fellow Richmond anarchist) sent me by the voluntaryist George H. Smith. It’s a mock dialogue between an LPer and a anti-political libertarian (APL) on the subject of statist politics pursued for libertarian ends. APL discusses the contradiction in a party who promotes the idea of a free society participating in the mechanism that oppresses it.

LPer: But we both agree on the desirability of a free society. It seems to me that we just disagree on how best to achieve it.

APL: Yes, we are in basic agreement concerning the goal to be achieved. But I am not merely asserting that the political method is inefficient in pursuit of this goal. Rather, I am arguing that the political means is inconsistent with libertarian principles, that it flies in the face of basic libertarian ideals. Consider an analogy. I state that a basic goal in my life is to acquire a good deal of money. You concede that this goal is, in itself, unobjectionable. Then I proceed to rob a bank. You are horrified and demand to know how I could do such a thing. I reply that we have a strategic difference of opinion. We both agree that my goal is laudable; we simply disagree concerning the means by which to attain it. We disagree on how to get from here to there. So I demand from you an alternative strategy for me to get rich. Sure, I say, my plan may not be perfect, but what can you purists offer in it place? Give me an alternate strategy, I demand, before taking pot shots at mine.

How would you reply to this? I suspect that you would accuse me of shifting ground. You would point out that the objection to robbing banks is not a simple issue of strategy, but involves profound moral questions. And you would say that your protest against my action was moral, rather than strategic, in nature. Therefore, unless I can surmount the moral objections to robbing banks, the strategy question is irrelevant. I cannot squirm past the moral issues, the matters of principle, in the guise of demanding alternate strategies.

Now, returning to the subject of political action, I respond to your question the same way. Fine, let’s get together and talk over the issue of strategy some day - we can talk about education, moral suasion, counter-economics, alternative institutions, civil disobedience, or what have you - but that’s not the issue here. I submit that there is a profoundly anti-libertarian aspect of political action - i.e., of attempting to elect libertarians to public office - and this is the issue to which political libertarians must first address themselves. Show me that political action is consistent with libertarian principles, and then we can take up the issue of strategy.

LPer: But you must address yourself to the issue of strategy at some point. You wish to disqualify the political means altogether, which seems to leave you precious little by which you can work for a free society. If your principles condemn you to inaction and certain defeat, then surely there must be something wrong with your principles.

APL: This is quite curious. You equate activism with political action. Doing something, for you means, doing something political. You regard an anti-political libertarian as a non-activist, and this is surely one of the most pernicious myths circulating in the LP today.

This is a key point that I needed to hear: just because I’m not voting doesn’t mean I don’t care. I care passionately about what happens to this country, but I will not take part in its subjugation by granting the state my tacit permission to do so. There are other ways to effect change upon the world without resorting to the vote, such as counter-economics, direct action, engaging people in conversation, etc..

Wally Conger drives this point home with his Anti-Electorate manifesto, the introduction to which struck me (but the whole thing is short and right):

Of course, Big Media, political wonks, and Hollywood’s get-out-the-vote “Left” insist that we members of the anti-Electorate are too lazy and/or apathetic to exercise the right to choose our own masters.

Baloney. More and more, non-voting has become a conscious choice for Americans. And as Frank Chodorov wrote almost 60 years ago: “Remember that the proposal to quit voting is basically revolutionary; it amounts to a shifting of power from one group to another, which is the essence of revolution.… Unlike other revolutions, it calls for no organization, no violence, no war fund, no leader to sell it out. In the quiet of his conscience each citizen pledges himself, to himself, not to give moral support to an unmoral institution, and on election day he remains at home. That’s all.”

If the state is institutionalized violence, then what is the vote but a way to legitimize it by appeal to popularity? Remember that when you vote, you’re not just agreeing to your own oppression - you’re sanctioning your neighbor’s. Not that you have the moral authority to grant that sanction anymore than the politicians have capacity to accept it.

Which underlines the total fraud that voting is - the socially coordinated rejection of authentic human moral agency. It’s another example of the divesture of authority and responsibility onto some inanimate, abstract “institution” (in this way it is much like the corporate structure, and my critique is on similar grounds, but I’ll elaborate in a future post). I hold that in order for humans to be moral, their responsibility to act morally is unalienable whatsoever - for the same reason their rights are.

This is why our rightful human liberty does not derive from state recognition, but rather from our own nature. All this talk about “rights” and “responsibilities” is just a way of identifying undelying aspects of individual sovereignty. If it’s wrong for humans to, say, murder, then any aggregation of humans, no matter how constructed, cannot murder legitimately - nor can they grant the permission to do so! Therefore, elections are nothing more than a superstitious ritual by which everybody pretends to be something they’re not.

Tags: voting, elections

Every time I turn around, someone’s opining that John Kerry “owes everyone who’s ever served in the military an apology.” I don’t presume to speak for “everyone who’s ever served in the military,” but I can speak for myself, so I will.

As a veteran of the 1991 war (Marine Corps — infantry), I don’t desire an apology from Senator Kerry. I didn’t find what he said offensive. The line as it was allegedly intended to be delivered would have been better, but what he actually said worked okay.

I do, however, have something to ask of the Democrats who are running for cover: Stop. Please. Show some goddamn backbone, for the love of Harry Truman. If you want a party line to cling to, try this one on for size:

“We’ll gladly apologize for John Kerry blowing a line in a speech — just as soon as we’ve heard George W. Bush’s apology for the nearly 3,000 American deaths, the tens of thousands of American injuries and maimings, and the virtual disintegration of the US armed forces caused by his military incompetence, moral bankruptcy, and treasonous abuse of executive power.”