socio-mentalism

"It's as if the socialists discovered that their plan creates poverty, so they decided to change their name to environmentalists and make poverty their goal." Lew Rockwell

my previous post was out of sorts for my usual fare. i tend toward the theoretical and the radical. the relatively trivial minutiae of the supposed 'real' world are at best a distraction and at worst an endless source of infuriation. i merely passed on a piece of news from a US blog that i follow (mises.org), to a hardworking blogger that i used to follow. i knew that that kind of news reporting was best left to those who focus upon and excel at such endeavours. i feared this tid bit of information that i would normally pay little notice would pass unheeded in the uk and so i passed it on and hoped it might be of value to some. my own unedited stream of semi literate venting was almost as bad as the rest of the writing i put out but fortunately anna raccoon did exactly what i had hoped and turned out a sterling article. ive long despaired of the uk 'libertarian' blogosphere but i expect too much of people. even youngsters raised in a relatively more liberal social environment are still horrifically statist so it should be no surprise that the uk blogosphere, which i believe probably has a fairly high average age, are not committed individualist anarchists, coming as they do from a different time and place. almost everything in the uk used to have the prefix 'British' or 'National'. you name it we had it nationalised. there are plenty who pay lip service to being anti state but still get watery eyed at the nostalgia of empire and the nationalism of antiquity - bogus history of the elite.
anna raccoons piece was cross posted at ian dale's blog which is getting pretty far from anything that might identify as libertarian as i understand the term. the commenters at anna raccoons seemed to be of the old fashioned autonomous vein and decried the property grab on the basis that they were perfectly able to take direct responsibility and roll their sleeves up when push came to shove. fair play to them - they dont need the state and so they dont want it providing that service to them - they are not the object of my scorn. as a fan of anarcho capitalism i consider the personal responsibility that is concomitant with individual freedom to be something that can be voluntarily delegated. i do not imagine that sans tyrannical fascist sewerage agencies i would necessarily be left with no option but to unblock my own drains. if that be the price for freedom then bring it on - ill shovel as much shit as it takes. but obviously the specialisation of the free market means that it is best for myself and society as a whole if clearing drains is left to the experts. for example the dentist or grocer is at his most productive, useful and contributary when doing what he does best. for him to be unblocking his drains makes no economic/praxeological sense. but as i say most of the uk libertarian blogosphere come from a time when husbands would often plumb in their own gas central heating or service the brakes on their family car. this was a time of relative freedom and responsibility. perhaps this is why some of the uk right have become drawn to this exciting new word from the states - libertarianism. they dont quite get it entirely but that is through no fault of their own.
anyways - to the point of this unintentionally insulting piece - some of the comments at ian dales blog were of a sort i probably should have expected. 'mountain out of a mole hill' 'whats so bad about that' 'id be glad of it' etc. these same people feel the emotive reaction against the state limiting their nicotine or alcohol or earnings  but have never been exposed to the illuminating theories of libertarianism. all opposition to oppression of consumption (booze n fags) should be based in property rights. the bar is privately owned. your body is privately owned. the substances are privately owned. so there is no room in the equation for a coercive third party.
sometimes this uninvited bully will offer 'services' which will be gratefully accepted by the commenters as seen above on the basis that this removal of troublesome responsibility is completely free. what harm could possibly come from taking such charitable gifts?
well its coercion that ruins all the fun. without having to serve customers well enough to ensure continued voluntary trade the bully can do as they damn well please. now perhaps you can understand why people throughout modern history and across the western world all scramble madly to sign up for 'socialised healthcare'. its free - whats the worst that could happen?
i dont have the time to educate the ignorant (perhaps entirely due to no direct fault of their own) on the theoretical basis of freedom. anyone who rails against government or who desires freedom should realise that without a sound understanding of the theoretical underpinnings youre just another statist clamouring for a slightly different flavour of oppression.
i focus on principles that can be applied universally and without compromise. if you are happy for the government to take a part of your property you deem inconsequential the you have no basis for objection when they take something you do value - your earnings for example. either you have property rights or you do not. there is no compromise. you cannot have an inviolable right to some property but not to others. you may choose to VOLUNTARILY give away some property - for example charity in place of welfarist-taxation. you may CHOOSE to VOLUNTARILY relinquish responsibility for your sewerage in a commercial trade. if you want to pay thames water to deal with that then fine. however IF IT ISNT VOLUNTARY ITS CRIMINAL. additionally it will probably be horrendously expensive and lousy service too as there will be no competition and no incentive to serve you.
there is a sound consequentialist economic argument against this that some fools fail to see. this is the more 'normal' point of view and so if they cant get their heads around that then we're all doomed. the main argument is the unarguable axiom of self ownership and thusly derived property rights.
i despair that people could feel they have any rights at all without total and uncompromised property rights. at least the downright wrong total communist anti-propertarian has some (totally false) principle he claims - everyone between us self owning individuals and those tyrannical criminals is nothing more than a confused directionless fool.

Do you think you'll see it coming?

im quite often amazed that the sheeple consider people like us to be crazy crack-pot conspiracist loons, wildly overreacting and imagining the worst possible case scenario of a far off future. they seem to think that all is rosy and if anything remotely approaching tyranny, slavery, despotism or fascism began to rear its ugly head theyd be immediately aware and stamp that shit out. fact is whether through design or accident we're pretty much already there and they are not only ignorant but shout down any of us that try to illuminate their view.
gradualism has crept up on us. if you were to suggest policies that are considered absolutely normal and beyond question in todays world to an individual from 1970, 1940, 1920 or 1800 they would all baulk at the ideas and quite rightly deride the ridiculous evil. but if one highlights these same policies among a group of contemporaries you will, yourself, become the object of ridicule.
for example when the Bow Street Runners were instituted as the londons first professional state police force there was wide ranging public outcry that even these 6 men would constitute a 'police state'. today I am made to feel the social equivalent of an advocate for paedophilia if i question even the most extreme of injustices committed by todays arbitrary, paramilitary police force let alone their very raison d'etre.

Anyways today i have learned of one such stepping stone on the road to Fabian shitsville of which it seems almost noone is aware!

http://www.thameswater.co.uk/cps/rde/xchg/corp/hs.xsl/8654.htm

ill bet you havent heard a peep of this in the msm. tv news hasnt mentioned it. i cant find any mention of it in a quick search of any other news outlet. I, a (involuntary) uk subject (slave), only discovered this state siezure of my private property through a US based blog! these corporate fascists will clog your letter box to update you of the tiniest bullshit they want to crow about but when it comes to the most significant news of this nature there is not a word. why has there been not even written notification? not that any amount of forewarning would justify such a crime.

basically it seems the water companies (who if this is ever reported in the msm will be described as private companies and part of the non existent free market) have been gifted ownership of your private property! they now. as of right now! own your private sewer. most of the sheeple will be reduced to childish fits of giggles that anyone could become so enraged by something so supposedly hilarious as an underground pipe of shit. but the point is that this is private property and it has just been seized, stolen, taken just. like. that.
and you thought youd notice when the red army came over the hill and took your property. well you missed it. there were no jackboots, no tanks, no visible signs marching through your town centre. but its happened. i mean they already take the money you earn - which is your private property - they take it BEFORE it even reaches your bank account. you NEVER hold that property. the sheeple who have never even once considered this for one fucking second will, without pause for consideration, deem themselves so high and fucking mighty as to instantaneously spew forth some ad-libbed drivel in order to justify, obfuscate and excuse this crime. it never ceases to amaze me that people who have literally never ever thought about farm subsidies for example will automatically react against ANY criticism i make of the wonderous state. i mean what makes them think that i am automatically wrong on an issue they have absolutely ZERO knowledge of?!

and so we will experience the same on this. i will be told that i should be thankful that, without even being asked, the paternal state has decided to do me the favour of taking my private property off me because they know fucking best. i could not possibly take care of even my own fucking drains. i cant be trusted with the maintenance of my car, the education of my thankfully non existent children, choosing my own level of healthcare and now even the tubes, the simplest technology known to man, the fucking tube, even the tubes that take away my shit are too fucking complicated to be left under my responsibility.

the water companies, in an environment so bound by regulation, licensing and monopoly that they should be considered part of the state (the definition of fascism by the way) will of course charge everyone extra for this privilege whether they have a private sewer or not. so if you dont have sewerage under your private land then you will be subsidising those who do. if you rent a property and pay the water bill then you will be paying for the maintenance of your landlords asset. also remember that the water companies are directly subsidised by the state so youll be paying at both ends through taxation too.

now perhaps you may begin to understand why the state has enacted such a mystifyingly 'altruistic' offer. the water companies are paid for the work they do. they want more money so they need more work. the state has given them more work by simply stealing your pipes and handing them over to the water companies in order that you can be squeezed even more and the cronies of the state elite can benefit.

remember that your sewerage will be covered by your buildings insurance (compulsory in the uk i believe) so this is not a case of the state wading in and solving a problem for you. as usual there was no problem that required solving in the first place. you will find little to no mention of this fact in any of the propaganda coming your way. it will be presented as something you should be grateful for. perhaps theyll do you another favour and size your car, computer and house. something to look forward to eh.

if you read some of the material at the above link you will realise that even according to their own figures there is far more private sewerage in the uk than there is public sewerage currently available to them. so this is no small grab. do not, as the sheeple no doubt will, consider that this is just a few feet of pipe here and there, or that ti applies only to landed gentry and their vast country estates. i would wager that near enough every domestic building in the uk has some amount of private sewerage and that you can expect a truckload of contractors not answerable to  you, the supposed customer, to disgorge their machinery onto your lawn and tear up a trench like the somme in the near future. they will ineffectually poke around looking for a non existent problem all the while racking up the clock that might even be charged to you directly and entirely if it surpasses some arbitrary and changing boundary. then they will leave a hideous and expensive mess. this WILL happen and is not overreaction. we know this from previous experience with other utilities. the material already says that whatever bits of sewerage they decide to be too tricky to bother with wont be taken. so if your have such problematic drains that you may have actually benefited form this travesty - you wont.

As a Rothbardian i know that any and all rights are property rights. property = freedom. all tyrannies and injustices are abrogations of property rights. this is massive and it boggles the mind that the state can seize any part of your residential property - you fucking home for christ sake! this is not simply an extension of abstract control into your home as in the case of any future smoking ban in domestic residences - a move that i have seen many online commenters proclaim would see them leave the country - it is an actual seizure of ownership. those pipes WERE yours. now theyre not. they belong to the water company. which as i have explained is part of the state. they are not your pipes to permit access to at a time of your choosing - they belong to the state who will do as they wish with what is now their property when the fucking well want to.

Mainstream academic economics

Lazy blogging - just reposting a comment I posted elsewhere in response to the following  quote from the anti state true freed market economists at mises.org

"Most academics don't have much idea about how markets work, since they have so little experience with them, living as they do in their subsidised ivory towers and protected by academic tenure."
Peter G Klein
http://mises.org/store/The-Capitalist-The-Entrepreneur-P10373.aspx

Which prompted me to write in agreement...

The establishment of cushy, subsidised, tenure-protected ivory towers by the state is no accident. The political class nurture and protect their propagandists and apologists in the priest class of mainstream academia and media. There is a simbiotic relationship between those who benefit from coercive rule and those that excuse and justify it on their behalf. This is a relationship as old as 'civilisation'/coercive rule itself. Is it any surprise that in an academic world dominated by and entirely dependent upon the state that the overriding economic consensus is one that justifies state intervention? The elite are not incentivised to maximise economic performance but rather they look to ideologies that maximise their economic plunder. Thus one can understand the popularity of socialism and keynesianism. The statist elite will only ever look to laissez faire policies when their kleptocracy becomes evidently unsustainable. They will always prefer ideas that legitimise massive theft even if those ideas shrink the pocket that is plundered. Only when keynesianism threatens to completely destroy their socialist economy will they reluctantly accede to opening their eyes to alternative models of slavery. And that will not be a good thing. A statist 'free market' will be unavoidably crony corporatist.

Ever signed their contract?

Consent of the Governed? - Robert Higgs - Mises Daily

"very few of us in this country at present are actively engaged in armed rebellion against our rulers. And it is precisely this absence of outright violent revolt that, strange to say, some commentators take as evidence of our consent to the outrageous manner in which the government treats us. Grudging, prudential acquiescence, however, is not the same thing as consent, especially when the people acquiesce, as I do, only in simmering, indignant resignation."

Click the link and drink in a stunning Proudhon quote. Guaranteed the best link you'll click today.

An Alternative Jurisdiction Within The Venezuelan State

If you're an anarchist, interested in polycentric legal systems, competitive jurisdictions, and voluntary social organisation then you'll find plenty of food for thought in this video and accompanying article.
It does need to be said that I am not advocating this as a text book example of libertopia but, like Somalia and other examples of human society under reduced statism, these rare glimpses can prove tantalising insights.
Perhaps this prison is more akin to the oft cited criticism of anarchy that instead of one Nation-State sized state, we would all live in mini-states and there would be no true anarchy. I don't think this would be the supposed prohibitively negative vision anarchists' critics believe. the fiefdoms of rival city states/gated communities/gang lands/warlords or whatever they refer to sound terrible but it would be more akin to choosing between Butlins, Centre Parcs or Disney world (competing commercial holiday resorts).