leftlibertarian.org

For some interesting debate on the respective merits of Ron Paul versus None of the Above as libertarian choices in the current presidential campaign, see here and here.

As for those favouring yet a different direction, a third option is available:

The Utah Highway Patrol dispenses justice.

Frankly, you can worship the baby Jesus and drink nothing stronger than milk, or you can sniff glue and marry a goat, I don’t give a damn. Just leave me out of it and leave the government out of it.

That’s Tom Blanton, commenting on an article over at Last Free Voice.

As a side note, Blanton recently flirted with a presidential candidacy on the Guns and Dope Party ticket in another comment, this time at Third Party Watch … and I’ve tagged on for veep!

I don’t expect to vote for us — hell, I don’t even endorse us! — but I’m always in for an excuse to reproduce Guns and Dope Party Position Paper #23:

Little Tony was sitting on a park bench munching on one candy bar after another. After the 6th candy bar, a man on the bench across from him said, “Son, you know eating all that candy isn’t good for you It will give you acne, rot your teeth, and make you fat.”

Little Tony replied, “My grandfather lived to be 107 years old.”

The man asked, “Did your grandfather eat 6 candy bars at a time?”

Little Tony answered, “No, he minded his own fucking business.”

On to victory!

Thanks to all who took the time to comment on the recent post Ron Paul: A Complete Disaster for Libertarianism. One comment in particular, from Jeremy, was so long and thoughtful that I decided it deserved to be highlighted in its own post, despite our disagreement.

[begin quote]

I agree with much of what Molyneaux is saying. His invocation for us to live our personal freedom and engage in a personal crusade to educate others by both our words and actions is wonderful. This is obviously the basis for any sustainable movement against the State. He’s also extremely persuasive in demonstrating that political efforts to reform the State are doomed to failure. I mean, I’m convinced even more than I was before.

The problem I have with his message is that none of what he’s championing precludes supporting Ron Paul. To the extent that it takes energy away from people who would be pursuing other, more authentic anti-state activities, then maybe he has a point. But that’s NOT what I see occurring. Instead, Paul’s campaign is inspiring new activists to seriously think, learn, and act on the principles of individual liberty that we all support - many of them for the first time in their lives. This is not a zero sum game.

Like Harry Browne before him, Paul has openly said that there’s not much he’s going to be able to do, even if he were elected, without a widespread mandate for a libertarian agenda - but that he wouldn’t be elected unless this mandate existed in the first place. It’s not about reform - it’s about a symbol that people can get excited about and rally around to advance the libertarian, anti-state agenda.

And, yes, that’s all the candidate is - a symbol. Paul admits as much, stressing “the message” over his personality. I don’t like idolatry, but it occurs in any sort of movement. Paul will not “fix everything” and clearly there are some supporters who will be disappointed no matter what happens. But those kinds of misguided hopes would occur in any radical movement.

Supporting Paul does not mean that we think he’s a silver bullet. It’s just a good opportunity. Do I want revolution? Hell, yes! But that has it’s dangers as well without having the support of the population, just as the electoral reform path does. There is no substitute for the hard, personal work that Molyneaux exhorts us to take up - but the Paul campaign is not intended to be a substitute, at least for those of us anarchists who are standing behind him. It’s yet one more social phenomenon in which we should participate - as you’re doing in your own way - to propagandize against the State.

That’s my main thesis, but there’s one additional point I wanted to bring up. Molyneaux hinted that people’s understanding of the violence behind the State and it’s programs was similar to many people’s ignoring the violence occurring in some families. I thought that was a very, very astute insight. However, is the violence in both situations the problem or the symptom?

I think many libertarians erroneously single out a particular institution - the State - as the “root of all evil” to be forever vanquished. I think this is more than a bit utopian because it appears to me that the State is addressing real psychological, emotional, and social human conditions that cannot be “abolished”. Just as Ron Paul’s campaign is one of many “symbols” of the freedom movement, the State is just a “symbol” of something more fundamental and difficult at not just the social but the individual level. If we want to address these conditions in a different, more voluntary manner, then great - I’m all for that The latter is a positive task, the former a negative one. We should focus on building the alternative institutions with real human beings in mind instead of bitching about who’s evil and who’s not. And don’t worry, I’ve been as bad about this in my advocacy as anybody.

That’s why I see all this (forgive the expression) pissing on Ron Paul’s parade as incredibly ill advised. So what if the campaign is a less-than-perfect vehicle for bringing about change? It’s in good company with the other strategies we libertarians have tried and continue to think up. None of us have it figured out. None of us have enough success that we can go to these people and show them how stupid or misguided they are. We’re all trying to get it right, and it’s counterproductive to turn it into a debate over strategy when we haven’t even captured the majority’s hearts and minds yet!

No, the Ron Paul campaign is not the ideal vehicle for raising libertarian, anti-state consciousness, but it’s the best vehicle we’ve had in some time. Let’s admit it’s flawed and use it for our own ends rather than complaining that the unwashed masses haven’t figured out what we know so well.

Sorry if I come across as needlessly hostile; I assure you that I appreciate this exchange. I just want to try and communicate with you on an area of difference that I’ve noticed more and more between you and me. You and Molyneaux bring up excellent points, thus the wordy attempt on my part at addressing them.

[/end quote]

BTW, Jeremy, you didn’t seem hostile at all. As I read what you had to say, we simply disagree. I may have some followup on this if I can make the time to do so, though.

So the Saskatchewan team won the Grey Cup (or is it Gray Cup). We'll be hearing about this forever. On a couple of occasions when travelling in other parts of the country I have been asked, on hearing where I'm from, " is it true that people in Saskatchewan are nutty about football because there is nothing else to do out there?". I've heard this in Vancouver. I've heard this in the old quarter of Montreal. Actually I thought these comments were both funny and astute. Then there is the story about two Saskatchewan fans who were travelling in a taxi to a game in Hamilton. I'm not sure if it was the "Cup" but the cab driver didn't know anything about a game going on in that city although he certainly knew how to get to the stadium. The two Saskatchewanians were actually mad about this fact. The story was published in a newspaper sports page way back when. I also remember back in the seventies when the Roughriders were losing game after game and this almost led to the end of the team. But this is Regina, a city (if you can call it that) where there is never any money to fix the streets or find places for poor people but there is always money for football. Does anyone remember the battles over the enlargement of Taylor field about that time which caused people to be evicted from their homes because more space was needed to extend the west side of the stadium? Oh well, at least there is still Christmas. I see that "Home Alone" is playing on Turner Classic ...

Actually at the office this morning I brought some green sprinkled donuts just to show that I am not a big "blue" meanie. Arf, arf. But like I said Regina has an effect on people ... for the most part not to the good..

Today, November 25th, is the first day of 2007’s 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence. The 16 Days run from November 25th (International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women) to December 10th (International Human Rights Day). Sokari at Black Looks (2007-11-25) has a good run down on the events of the 16 Days, and a powerful statement of what it’s all about:

One fundamental problem is that because gender based violence is so common across the world that it has been normalised – through actions, language, imagery, pornography – and it is this normalisation that has to be broken. I spoke of my own personal experience of domestic violence. But the violence didn’t start there. I have had a life time of it from my child hood, of sexual harassment – touching, misogynist language, presumptions, jokes, looks, homophobia – it becomes a constant battle not to internalise the abuse. As a teenager I used to think it must be my fault – I am to sexual and that’s why this is happening. There was also the added racial element which expressed itself differently depending on whether in Africa or in the West. I did not know where to turn or how to deal with any of this. All of us girls were experiencing similar abuse. With my father acting like a – prison guard when it came to boys/men, I was way too scared to talk to my parents about it even too my mother. The strict environment left no doors open in which to try to discuss this with family members for fear of being grounded to the house. Looking back I probably thought it was normal – we girls and women are the one’s responsible for arousing men who then cannot help themselves. Unfortunately much of society still believes and accept this ridiculous explanation for acts of violence against women.

All our denials – women, men, parents, families, communities – will certainly not protect us. On the contrary it sustains and even encourages acts of violence against women………

It is a scourge that preys on women and girls of ALL nations, of ALL cultures. It is gender-based violence – and it continues to grow, encouraged by the silence surrounding the issue and excused by reference to cultural norms. At the dawn of the 21st Century it is a very negative reflection of global society that violence against women is increasing throughout the world. Gender-based violence is the social, psychological and economic subordination of women and occurs in ALL societies. Violence against women is a complex phenomenon deeply rooted in the way society is composed – cultural beliefs, power relations, economic power imbalances, and the masculine ideal of male dominance

—Sokari, Black Looks (2007-11-25): International Day Against Violence Against Women

Cara at feministe (2007-11-25) adds:

And as a blogger, I encourage all others to blog on the topic as much as possible for the next 16 days (and thereafter). Of course, blogging is neither the only nor most effective method of activism, but I also think that it plays an important role. If you read liberal blogs that don’t normally cover gender issues, strongly encourage them to participate (and demand answers if they won’t). If you run a non-feminist blog, or read other non-feminist blogs by writers that you know care about women, let them know and encourage them to blog about the issue, too. The issue of gender violence is an absolutely massive one, considering the many forms that violence can and does take and all of the intersections of race, sexual orientation, age, nationality, class, religion, location, etc. It has more dimensions than I imagine the combined efforts of every feminist blogger working diligently for the entire 16 days could fully cover. And that’s why it’s so important to say as much as we can. I will be covering the issue of gender violence as much as possible on my own blog for the 16 Days.

I would like to see my fellow libertarians and anarchists, in particular, take up this challenge. Violence against women, when not simply waved off as a fabrication of p.c. academic feminists, is far too often dismissed or marginalized as if it were an isolated personal problem in a few unusual relationships, or a freakish phenomenon of some benighted and far-away cultures, or among the tragic but perhaps inevitable misfortunes of the female sex. Male violence against women is, in fact, pervasive, systemic, and universal, both abroad and in your own neighborhood. It is the result of the deliberate and systematic practice of men — including individual men who personally commit violence against women, men in positions of political power who order or encourage or permit violence against women under the color of their authority, and also men who cultivate and disseminate a misogynistic culture in the form of jokes, artworks, ads, literature, sermons, journalism, pornography, and overt propaganda. Understanding the nature of the individual violent actions — wife beating, date rape, stalking, groping, rape as a weapon of war, etc. — is of fundamental importance; and so is understanding the backdrop of misogynistic attitudes, practices, and institutions that nurture and sustain this systemic violence through an ideology of male supremacy and men’s right to use harassment, intimidation, and force to control their women.

Libertarianism and anarchism profess to to be a comprehensive theory of human freedom; what supposedly distinguishes the anti-statist theories of justice is that they concern themselves with violent coercion no matter who is practicing it, no matter what ideological-mystical excuses may be used to cover over the violent domination. What feminists have forced into the public eye over the course of the last 40 years is the fact that we live in a society where one out of every four women faces rape or battery by an intimate partner (Tjaden and Thoennes 2000), and where women are threatened or attacked by men who profess to love them, because the men coercing them believe they have a right to control their women. Male violence against women is nominally illegal but nevertheless systematic, motivated by the desire for control, culturally excused, and hideously ordinary. For libertarians and anarchists, confronting the full reality of male violence means nothing less than recognizing the existence of a violent political order working alongside, and independently of, the violent political order of statism. As Catharine MacKinnon writes, Unlike the ways in which men systematically enslave, violate, dehumanise, and exterminate other men, expressing political inequalities among men, men’s forms of dominance over women have been accomplished socially as well as economically, prior to the operation of the law, without express state acts, often in intimate contexts, as everyday life (1989, 161). We must recognize the systemic violence and terror of male dominance as a politically coercive order, even though it is usually carried out in society, independently of the state apparatus, and we must oppose and resist it for precisely the same reasons that we oppose the violence and terror of the State.

Although neither directed nor coordinated by any central authority, male violence against women, and the spontaneous disorder of male supremacy that emerges from these countless acts of violence and intimidation, have their own ideological rationalizations, their own propaganda, their own expropriation, and their own violent enforcement, all of which are made invisible by the same male supremacist culture, and made to pass as sex, love, and daily life between men and women. Although often in league with the male-dominated state, male violence is older, more invasive, closer to home, and harder to escape than most forms of statism. To seriously oppose all political violence, libertarians need to fight, at least, a two-front war, against both statism and male supremacy. I urge my comrades to join me, and to join the many women in every nation of the world who are organizing to expose, to resist, and finally to end systemic male violence against women — immediately, completely, and forever.

Today, November 25th, is the first day of 2007’s 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence. The 16 Days run from November 25th (International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women) to December 10th (International Human Rights Day). Sokari at Black Looks (2007-11-25) has a good run down on the events of the 16 Days, and a powerful statement of what it’s all about:

One fundamental problem is that because gender based violence is so common across the world that it has been normalised – through actions, language, imagery, pornography – and it is this normalisation that has to be broken. I spoke of my own personal experience of domestic violence. But the violence didn’t start there. I have had a life time of it from my child hood, of sexual harassment – touching, misogynist language, presumptions, jokes, looks, homophobia – it becomes a constant battle not to internalise the abuse. As a teenager I used to think it must be my fault – I am to sexual and that’s why this is happening. There was also the added racial element which expressed itself differently depending on whether in Africa or in the West. I did not know where to turn or how to deal with any of this. All of us girls were experiencing similar abuse. With my father acting like a – prison guard when it came to boys/men, I was way too scared to talk to my parents about it even too my mother. The strict environment left no doors open in which to try to discuss this with family members for fear of being grounded to the house. Looking back I probably thought it was normal – we girls and women are the one’s responsible for arousing men who then cannot help themselves. Unfortunately much of society still believes and accept this ridiculous explanation for acts of violence against women.

All our denials – women, men, parents, families, communities – will certainly not protect us. On the contrary it sustains and even encourages acts of violence against women………

It is a scourge that preys on women and girls of ALL nations, of ALL cultures. It is gender-based violence – and it continues to grow, encouraged by the silence surrounding the issue and excused by reference to cultural norms. At the dawn of the 21st Century it is a very negative reflection of global society that violence against women is increasing throughout the world. Gender-based violence is the social, psychological and economic subordination of women and occurs in ALL societies. Violence against women is a complex phenomenon deeply rooted in the way society is composed – cultural beliefs, power relations, economic power imbalances, and the masculine ideal of male dominance

—Sokari, Black Looks (2007-11-25): International Day Against Violence Against Women

Cara at feministe (2007-11-25) adds:

And as a blogger, I encourage all others to blog on the topic as much as possible for the next 16 days (and thereafter). Of course, blogging is neither the only nor most effective method of activism, but I also think that it plays an important role. If you read liberal blogs that don’t normally cover gender issues, strongly encourage them to participate (and demand answers if they won’t). If you run a non-feminist blog, or read other non-feminist blogs by writers that you know care about women, let them know and encourage them to blog about the issue, too. The issue of gender violence is an absolutely massive one, considering the many forms that violence can and does take and all of the intersections of race, sexual orientation, age, nationality, class, religion, location, etc. It has more dimensions than I imagine the combined efforts of every feminist blogger working diligently for the entire 16 days could fully cover. And that’s why it’s so important to say as much as we can. I will be covering the issue of gender violence as much as possible on my own blog for the 16 Days.

I would like to see my fellow libertarians and anarchists, in particular, take up this challenge. Violence against women, when not simply waved off as a fabrication of p.c. academic feminists, is far too often dismissed or marginalized as if it were an isolated personal problem in a few unusual relationships, or a freakish phenomenon of some benighted and far-away cultures, or among the tragic but perhaps inevitable misfortunes of the female sex. Male violence against women is, in fact, pervasive, systemic, and universal, both abroad and in your own neighborhood. It is the result of the deliberate and systematic practice of men — including individual men who personally commit violence against women, men in positions of political power who order or encourage or permit violence against women under the color of their authority, and also men who cultivate and disseminate a misogynistic culture in the form of jokes, artworks, ads, literature, sermons, journalism, pornography, and overt propaganda. Understanding the nature of the individual violent actions — wife beating, date rape, stalking, groping, rape as a weapon of war, etc. — is of fundamental importance; and so is understanding the backdrop of misogynistic attitudes, practices, and institutions that nurture and sustain this systemic violence through an ideology of male supremacy and men’s right to use harassment, intimidation, and force to control their women.

Libertarianism and anarchism profess to to be a comprehensive theory of human freedom; what supposedly distinguishes the anti-statist theories of justice is that they concern themselves with violent coercion no matter who is practicing it, no matter what ideological-mystical excuses may be used to cover over the violent domination. What feminists have forced into the public eye over the course of the last 40 years is the fact that we live in a society where one out of every four women faces rape or battery by an intimate partner (Tjaden and Thoennes 2000), and where women are threatened or attacked by men who profess to love them, because the men coercing them believe they have a right to control their women. Male violence against women is nominally illegal but nevertheless systematic, motivated by the desire for control, culturally excused, and hideously ordinary. For libertarians and anarchists, confronting the full reality of male violence means nothing less than recognizing the existence of a violent political order working alongside, and independently of, the violent political order of statism. As Catharine MacKinnon writes, Unlike the ways in which men systematically enslave, violate, dehumanise, and exterminate other men, expressing political inequalities among men, men’s forms of dominance over women have been accomplished socially as well as economically, prior to the operation of the law, without express state acts, often in intimate contexts, as everyday life (1989, 161). We must recognize the systemic violence and terror of male dominance as a politically coercive order, even though it is usually carried out in society, independently of the state apparatus, and we must oppose and resist it for precisely the same reasons that we oppose the violence and terror of the State.

Although neither directed nor coordinated by any central authority, male violence against women, and the spontaneous disorder of male supremacy that emerges from these countless acts of violence and intimidation, have their own ideological rationalizations, their own propaganda, their own expropriation, and their own violent enforcement, all of which are made invisible by the same male supremacist culture, and made to pass as sex, love, and daily life between men and women. Although often in league with the male-dominated state, male violence is older, more invasive, closer to home, and harder to escape than most forms of statism. To seriously oppose all political violence, libertarians need to fight, at least, a two-front war, against both statism and male supremacy. I urge my comrades to join me, and to join the many women in every nation of the world who are organizing to expose, to resist, and finally to end systemic male violence against women — immediately, completely, and forever.

The Romantics are suing the makers of the game Guitar Hero for including a cover of their song “What I Like About You” in the game.

Why? Did the game makers use the song without permission? Nope. They had permission.

So what’s the problem? Well, it turns out that the cover sounded too much like the original, and so “infringed the group’s right to its own image and likeness.” (I’d always thought “image and likeness” was a Biblical phrase, not a legal one.) “I was very upset,” explained the lead singer of this band that borrowed its name from an 1894 play by Edmond Rostand, “because the band had worked very hard over many years to develop and use its distinctive sound.”

Well, who wouldn’t be upset if somebody took away from them something they’d worked many years to develop and use? But I don’t see how this applies in the current case. Has the Romantics’ distinctive sound really been taken away? Did they go to practice one morning and suddenly find out that they sounded different?

And even if I believed in IP – which I don’t – I have trouble seeing how the Romantics have much of a case when they gave Guitar Hero permission to do a cover in the first place. Covers that sound a lot like the originals are not a particularly unusual phenomenon; indeed there are cover bands – and not just amateur ones either – that specialise in sounding like the originals. (For example, doesn’t the Swingin’ Swamis’ version of “Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps” sound a lot like Mari Wilson’s more famous version – which of course is also a cover?) It seems to me that when you give permission to do a cover, it’s a reasonable expectation that you might get an imitation of the original unless you specify otherwise.

I suspect what’s really going on here is that Guitar Hero turned out to be more lucrative than the Romantics expected, and they’re kicking themselves for not asking for a better deal up front – so they want to rewrite the contract retroactively. Money quote (literally), from a spokesman for the band: “The sales of this game are huge …. We’re all for good commerce. We just want to share in it.”

Just finished watching Razor (excellent, by the way), our last dose of Galactica until March or April, when Sci-Fi will start giving us the first half of season four. As for the second half, it remains to be seen whether it’ll ever get made; the writers’ strike has placed the show’s continuation in jeopardy. (See the story here; for background from Ron Moore see here, here, and here.)

Or at least that’s how everyone online seems to be describing it – even those sympathetic to the strike. But how is this situation supposed to be specifically the writers’ doing, or the strike’s doing?

Yes, it’s true that the writers could quickly get BSG out of danger by cancelling their strike. But it’s equally true that the media companies could quickly get BSG out of danger by giving in to the writers’s demands. It takes two sides to make an impasse; the fact that responsibility for the impasse is being assigned one-sidedly, to the writers, shows how pervasive is the assumption that whatever the employers want is the default reality. That fact by itself is presumptive reason to support the writers’ side; when one side in a dispute has acquired that kind of default status, that’s evidence that it has been enjoying an unfair power imbalance in its favour.

P.S. – Galactica fans will know why I picked this particular photo to illustrate this post ….