BlueMountains28 is a YouTube user and apparent e-stalker who posts random and often incoherent appeals to anarchists, usually in attempts to defame Ryan Faulk under the guise of “saving anarchism.”  Recently, he (BM28, that is, and the “he” is an assumption) posted the following comment on my channel:

Security firms will destroy society.
view_play_list?p=9A7EFF4766AE4D25

The string of letters and numbers is the second part of a YouTube URL, pointing to this playlist.  In the description, BM28 writes (enumeration mine; explanation forthcoming):

Armed militias will use coercion to fight over resources and exploit others [1]. Services that contain coercion need to be collectivized in order to prevent special interests from using force to dominate others for their own benefit, such as in protection rackets [2]. Wealthy landlords raised private armies that ripped society apart in 19th century Mexico and feudal Japan [3]. Anarchists will need to use other models that combine collectivism and voluntary participation in order to prevent this [4]. PS Private security firms may play a supporting role, such as in local neighborhood patrols or temporarily stabilizing war torn societies like Sierra Leone, but they will be a disaster if they become the dominant means of organizing armed security [5].

Before going another step into this, let’s consider the above paragraph.

[1], [2] and [5] are bald assertions — nothing more, nothing less.

[3] is what I call hand-waving, because it makes vague references under the guise of supporting an argument, but the references don’t actually support anything.  Further, his choice of the phrase “ripped society apart” suggests to me a fondness of theatrics over substance.

[4] is not a solution.  BM28 insists that it is but, as I am about to show, gives us no reason to accept his claim.  On the contrary, counterexamples to his doomsday prediction abound, and what he proposes as a solution to the tyranny of “private militias” is actually vulnerable to the very problem he invokes.  Further, BM28’s own words will demonstrate his sheer lack of concern with furthering a coherent argument.  What his concern actually is, I’m not altogether certain, but it isn’t reasoned discourse or truth.

Now, with that out of the way, here is what I posted in response to BM28’s little rant:

How exactly is this a solution? Collectives are still comprised of individuals, and individuals still have volition. Decrying the evil motivations of men and positing a group of these same men as the solution is utter nonsense.

BM28 then claimed that I committed the fallacy the composition:

You are committing the fallacy of composition. Please see my channel’s comments for more details.

Why was he insistent that this discussion move to his channel?  Stay tuned.  Anyway, I read the following on his page:

(2) LibertyIsNotAGiven [sic], you don’t have to agree with people that provide constructive feedback. You just need to be open minded enough to recognize their issues are real.

You are committing the fallacy of composition by claiming the group is no more than the individuals that exist within it and is therefore irrelevant. That is like arguing a piece of chalk is no more than the isolated atoms that compose it and thus will always be invisible. This is a fallacy commonly made by libertarians.

That is, of course, silliness.  I responded by telling BM28 that, no, there is no composition fallacy, because I did not claim individuals must act one way as individuals and only that way in every other circumstance.  What I claimed was that individuals, regardless of circumstances, have volition. This is precisely what I said in my original response to his diatribe.  I also pointed out that, in order for BM28 to get around this criticism, he would have to claim that a piece of chalk ceases to be comprised of atoms simply by way of becoming chalk.  Reductio ad absurdum.  Case closed.

Well, not exactly.  You see, BM28 had his channel set up initially such that all comments must be approved before being posted.  Unable to handle the agony of defeat, he never approved my response to his “fallacy” claim.  Later, he turned off the approval setting, but at least two other comments of mine have mysteriously vanished from his page.  Since then, he has claimed that my posts must have run afoul of YouTube’s “spam filter.”  Even if that is true, it doesn’t explain why the first post was never approved in the first place, nor does it explain how BM28 knew to post this…:

Here is the definition. *In a composition fallacy, it is claimed that what is true of the parts is also true for the whole.*

I propose collectivizing the financing, public participation and implementation in order to form community level floating agencies. That would make it more difficult for specific individuals to use coercion against other individuals for their own benefit.

You don’t have to agree with my proposals but please do recognize how serious of an issue this is. Historically, wealthy landlords and powerful warlords have raised private armies that have torn apart their societies.

…on my channel, after failing to approve my comments on his.  Hmm.  What are you hiding from, BM28?

Hilariously, he later (and repeatedly) accused me of being “narrow” and of trying to “suppress” this profound truth of his.  What a crackpot.

In any case, notice above what is the first of many BM28 attempts to spin the discussion away from what I actually said to him in favor of making it seem as though I’m refusing to even consider the “problem” he claims to have identified.  Unfortunately for him, I never dismissed his “problem.”  Rather, I tried without success to get him to explain how his proposal actually solves anything.  Ostensibly it doesn’t, and there’s nothing to change my mind because BM28 won’t elaborate.  He has a nagging habit of just saying things and believing they are true simply by way of heartfelt assertion, but reality doesn’t work like that.

Perhaps inevitably, the discussion to date has deteriorated into BM28 insulting me and making numerous desperate attempts to straw-man me as thoroughly as possible so as to bury my points in bullshit.  The actual issues I raised with this individual were as follows:

• Define “private militias.”  Don’t just point to some historical artifact like “Feudal Japan” or “19th Century Mexico” and call it beholden to “private militias” ad hoc.  Actually define the term.
• Define “individual coercion.”
• Explain how collectivism solves the alleged problems with “private militias.”  Don’t just point to some circumstance that you hope to come about once the problem is solved.  Actually explain how your proposal will solve the problem.
• Define “collective decision-making” and explain how this solves the alleged problems.
• Explain how “administrative oversight” will be implemented, who the overseers will be, and who will overseer the overseers, while still maintaining some approximate compatibility with “anarchism.”

BM28 has failed on all counts except the first one.  He did eventually make an attempt to define “private militias,” after much hand-waving and evasion.  The definition he offered is as follows:

They are paramilitary organizations that are funded by private interests, such as wealthy landlords and drug traffickers, that act on the private interests’ behalf. They often consist of the landlords’ rural workers or a class of professional warriors.  Mexico in the former and Japan’s Samurai in the latter.

On its face, that isn’t a bad definition.  The problems creep in with his lame examples.  For example, Mexico’s drug traffickers were kept in business by governments, and the Samurai of Japan were beholden to the nobility, who were in turn beholden to emperors and other figures of power.  Furthermore, the raising of these “private” armies, to whatever extent that may have occurred, depended exclusively on collectivism.  It could not have come about in any other manner.  So even if one believes in the magical world of volition-less humans that exists in BM28’s mind, his proposal empirically fails by way of the very history he deigns to cite in support of it.

He hasn’t addressed this glaring hole in his “argument,” and I suspect he can’t, which explains why he has chosen instead to proceed down the path of insults and straw-men.

Caught in the downward spiral of his own epic failure, BM28 tried to rescue himself by saying:

My comments were very detailed. Open minded viewers should refer to my three comments on the next page of this board that start off with these passages.

What is a private militia?
How would collectivizing features of armed security reduce the abuse of coercion? Name some examples.

Most people would be able to say *Maybe private militias have a troubled past and the solutions may not be that simple. I am not sure but it is something to look into.* LibertyIsNotGiven can’t do that because he is just too narrow. It’s sad.

I replied:

1. You defined “private militias” whilst raising concerns over “the individual use of coercion” (another nebulous concept you never defined), then you invoked a manner [of] coercion that can only be enacted on a collective scale. Can you say “self-defeating?” Because you defeat yourself at every turn.

2. You never explained how your proposal would actually stop the hypothetical problem you raised, and this is actually irrelevant since the solution is vulnerable to same problem you cited to begin with.

3. You named “19th century Mexico, Feudal Japan, Afghanistan and Columbia.” This tells us NOTHING. Refer to the definition of “detailed” again. I could just as easily assert that medieval Iceland proves “private militias” viable and able to sustain a society for centuries. By your own logic, the argument should end there and any disagreement is automatically “dismissal” or “suppression.” Shall I accept your concession now?

“LibertyIsNotGiven can’t do that because he is just too narrow.” – LibertyIsNotGiven has handed your ass to you on a platter. Your hand-waving, straw-men and insults in place of actually responding to what I’ve said say more about your motivations and character than I could ever hope to.

Due to his failure on these and other counts, his only recourse is to claim that I am “too narrow,” whatever that means.

In a true admission of ineptitude, BM28 then took three separate quotes of mine, from completely different contexts, then spliced them together and pitted them against one another as follows:

I did respond to your initial counter arguments. That is why you have to lie in the comments below.

*I never said that a militia need necessarily be propped up by its resident state….Both backed by their respective states. Already been here. Yawn…..I said they are propped up by their respective states*

I am willing to discuss these issues with people that are a lot more open minded and a lot more honest. You are full of it.

At first, I wasn’t sure what he was talking about.  Then I looked back and realized what he’d done.  The actual comments he is quoting from (or quote-mining) here are as follows:

So you’re confusing civil war with private militias? That’s pathetic. Also, I never said that a militia need necessarily be propped up by its resident state. Outside influences work just as well. In any case, these warlords require a rather large collective of followers to do their nefarious deeds, and your proposal, as I’ve noted repeatedly, offers no solution to this. Rather, I think your proposal would make the problem worse by offering every incentive to buck the “system.”

…and:

I never said they were “due to the state.” I said they are propped up by their respective states, and other ways maybe [vise] versa. It’s a symbiotic arrangement, but I can’t really elaborate since you’re so afraid of providing details.

…and:

Both [are] backed by their respective states. Already been here. Yawn again. I’ll give you partial credit for actually trying to name a specific entity in one of the two examples this time, however.

Ain’t BM28 a shifty little critter?  What happened here is, he quote-mined part of one comment where I was discussing “private militias” in general and spliced it in with two other comments, wherein I was discussing the “examples” he provided.  He dropped my context and assigned his own in order to completely misrepresent what I said.  If BM28 isn’t a young-earth creationist, he should be.

So let’s be clear about this.  Feudal Japan, 19th Century Mexico, et. al. were beholden to and in proverbial cahoots with various governmental entities, as I stated to BM28 several times.  I never, never, never said that this must be true in all cases. Any statements of “mine” to the contrary do not exist outside of BM28’s overactive imagination.

As further evidence of his utter dishonesty, he has proudly displayed his quote-mining efforts in the description of his channel, attributing to me the butchered, snipped and sliced segments of ideas taken totally out of context.  In case he takes it down, I took a screenshot:

I’ve received some comments recently on both YouTube and Yahoo! concerning my characterization of patriots and nationalists.  Some people have gone as far as accusing me of confusing or conflating the two, despite my generally cautious employment of both terms.  I have also been called stupid, irrational, utopian, liberal, commie, fascist, neo-con, delusional and various combinations of those terms.  This usually occurs when I call someone a nationalist, and he objects, saying, “No, I’m not a nationalist.  I’m a patriot!”  I think the issue warrants a brief bit of exploration.

As with any analysis of words, let’s start by turning to our friend the dictionary.  Merriam-Webster defines patriotism as:

“…love for or devotion to one’s country….”

Random House 2009 defines it as:

“…devoted love, support, and defense of one’s country; national loyalty.”

As for nationalism, Merriam-Webster says:

“…loyalty and devotion to a nation  ; especially : a sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups….”

In turn, Random House offers the following:

“1. national spirit or aspirations. ; 2. devotion and loyalty to one’s own nation; patriotism. ; 3.  excessive patriotism; chauvinism. ; 4. the desire for national advancement or independence. ; 5. the policy or doctrine of asserting the interests of one’s own nation, viewed as separate from the interests of other nations or the common interests of all nations.”

So it’s clear that there is a significant degree of overlap between the two.

In gathering my thoughts on all of this, I quickly scanned the blogosphere for other articles on this subject and came across several.  The majority view, at least according to what I looked at, seems to be that patriotism is love of country coupled with tolerance and a recognition of shortcomings, whereas nationalism is love of country regardless of what the country does.  Of course, a 2001 article by Joseph Sobran seems to state the opposite, even though I don’t believe he intended to.  He asserts, “Patriotism is like family love. You love your family just for being your family, not for being ‘the greatest family on earth….’“  Then he goes on to say, “While patriotism is a form of affection, nationalism, it has often been said, is grounded in resentment and rivalry; it’s often defined by its enemies and traitors, real or supposed. It is militant by nature, and its typical style is belligerent. Patriotism, by contrast, is peaceful until forced to fight.”

So maybe Sobran doesn’t oppose the majority view, but his “family love” metaphor is a bit confusing.  I would say that loving one’s country for the sheer hell of it is more nationalistic than patriotic.  It would make more sense to me to love a nation on the basis of its great attributes, as opposed to loving it on the comparatively shallow basis of being born on a patch of dirt within the imaginary lines we call national borders.

In any case, much of the rigamarole seems to revolve around people arbitrarily assigning what they consider positive traits to patriotism, while assigning what they consider negative traits to nationalism.  One blog I read, “The Mahablog: Making the World Safe for Liberalism,” asserts the following: “Righties are not patriots, but nationalists. And I’m arguing that one of the basic differences between a patriot and a nationalist is that patriots value responsibility.“  For a dissenting opinion, one need only peruse the forums of Free Republic, wherein there is no shortage of vitriolic rhetoric from self-styled conservatives against anyone they perceive as a liberal.

Given such confusing, often contradictory accounts of what comprises patriotism and nationalism, it’s no wonder that someone such as myself, who eschews both, has a hard time differentiating.  If someone takes my guitar off of a venue’s stage and tries to walk out the door with it, in all likelihood I will call that person a thief.  Upon being confronted, he might protest by saying, “No, I’m not a thief.  I’m a spontaneous borrower.”  That might very well be the case, but I have no way to know that.  All I know is that he tried to take my guitar without my permission.

Likewise, if someone insists that I must accept being enslaved by the ruling elite, by way of a system this person considers ideal for whatever reason, then I will probably call him a nationalist.  He might then object by saying, “I’m not a nationalist.  I’m a patriot.”  That might very well be the case, but I have no way to know that.  All I know is that he is trying to force his preferred system on me at gunpoint, implied or otherwise.

So in a sea of arbitrary delineation, here is my own arbitrary delineation.  All nationalists are patriots.  Some patriots are nationalists.  I draw the line between those who recognize and accede to my desire to secede on an individual level from their system whether they agree with my preference or not, and those who insist that I may not secede or vow to oppose my secession with violence.  The former are patriots; the latter are nationalists.

Today I would like to examine two phrases that I lovingly refer to as products of the “lingual gag reflex.”  These phrases correspond to a series of sounds which are intended to convey some point, allegedly in opposition to ideas challenging a political status quo.  In reality, however, even though the words are commonly uttered or typed with great conviction, it is quite difficult to attach them to anything coherent.  For all intents and purposes, these lines truly are a lingual gag reflex, spewed passionately in the face of anyone who strikes a particular nerve but failing to rest upon any substantial meaning.

What are these phrases?  I’ll tell you:

“[My country]: love it or leave it.  No one is making you live here.”

“[Oppressive Institution/Program/Policy X] is necessary for the greater good.”

Love It or Leave It!

The first phrase is commonly offered in debates between anarchists and statists.  Depending upon the sophistication of the parties involved, it often takes the form, “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.”  Also common (specifically in reference to the U.S.) is the heartfelt claim that citizenship is voluntary, therefore government is voluntary.  Since it is voluntary, you consent to be governed by living here, and so on.  Frequently, links to information regarding renunciation of citizenship are provided for the anarchists’ benefit.

The statist who proceeds down this path of thought makes a number of errors, but I’m most concerned with one assumption.  That assumption is the anarchist’s consent to rule based on an arbitrary standard: existence.  Being born on a patch of dirt equals implicit consent (i.e. implicit acceptance of the social contract), therefore claims of oppression are invalid in the absence of any attempt to renounce citizenship or at least leave the country.  This assumption is ridiculous, of course, because any number of factors might be in play.

• The anarchist might lack the means to relocate himself.

• He might, as is increasingly the case in the slowly-militarizing United States, have problems with passports and other documentation.

• He might have a family that he cannot afford to relocate, or a family with members who have their own reasons for being unable to move.

• There are no anarchist commonwealths to which an anarchist might travel, so insisting that he “love” or “leave” the statist’s nation is tantamount to a non-argument, an absurd claim meant to end discussion rather than offer a rational defense for the forcing of a system upon the anarchist.  The anarchist might very well realize this and, by extention, realize there is no point in moving.  Wherever he goes, people will offer the same “love it or leave it” demand when he objects to being tyrannized by their government.  Even if one might be fully capable of renouncing his or her masters in some nebulous sense, doing so is likely to have no practical effect, as the renouncing individual will either still be subject to his former government due to land monopoly, or he will be subject to some other government upon leaving.

Just think of the strangeness intrinsic to this position.  Jews in Nazi Germany consented to torture and death camps.  Palestinians in Gaza consent to terrorism at the hands of the Israeli military, and likewise Israelis consent to rocket attacks and terrorism by Islamic fanatics.  Any individual or group that has been oppressed, tortured or killed by any other individual or group sovereign in the region where the event(s) occurred is “consenting” to oppression, torture and murder simply by way of being there.  This is what “implied consent” entails.  As such, a determined aggressor can derive the “consent” of his victim from just about anything.

The Greater Good!

What is the “greater good?”  Does the phrase mean anything at all?  Since both terms require subjective value judgments, I don’t think it’s possible to arbitrarily classify anything as “good” and then dub it “greater” on some equally arbitrary standard.  A woman being gang-raped is clearly in the minority.  Is her plight for the “greater good?”  Certainly not, I hope.  There’s nothing “good”at all from her perspective, in all likelihood, and it is doubtful that she will be assuaged by the “good” from her assailants’ viewpoints.

“That’s not fair!” cries the statist.  “The woman is a minority in that situation, but the rapists are the minority in society.”

Notable objection, and that might be true, but it only serves to highlight the arbitrariness.  At what point is the line drawn?  At what point does so-called “legitimate” majoritarian rule become so-called “illegitimate” majoritarian rule?  One might say that society is the only majority that counts, but even then the majority is arbitrarily limited based on imaginary lines in the dirt.  If the will of a majority makes “right,” then it is arbitrary to claim that any given majority is exempt from this.  A woman being in the minority compared to the rapists is no different than a tax-resisting individual being in the minority compared to the armed mercenaries at his door (and those who support and enable those mercenaries).  Furthermore, a woman who “consents” to rapists in fear of her life might be accurately likened to an individual who “consents” to taxation in fear of his life, well-being and/or possessions.

Saying that someone consents to a proposition or action under the threat or actuality of violence does one of two things.  It either renders the term “consent” meaningless, as something like consensual sex becomes such simply by one party threatening harm upon the other, or the term “consent” needs to be understood as a synonym for “surrender” or “submission.”  In fact, if “surrender” or “submission” more accurately reflects what statists mean when they claim someone “consents” to a government by existing under it, then I think it would serve for clearer discussion if they would use those terms instead.

So we’re left with the “greater good” being a reflection of one arbitrary majority’s will and the means by which they seek to sate that will, usually by compelling the minority opposition to submit or surrender under the threat or use of violence.

The problem here is that, even if the arbitrariness of defining a so-called legitimate majority is overlooked, there is no sensible way by which a government can possibly hope to accurately do the will of that majority.  Governments cannot properly allocate resources, as Ludwig von Mises demonstrated nearly a century ago.  How then can these same entities be expected to read minds and create rules accordingly?  Interestingly enough, free markets and free association between agents serve as very good solutions to this problem.

So when these arguments come up:

“[My country]: love it or leave it.  No one is making you live here.”

“[Oppressive Institution/Program/Policy X] is necessary for the greater good.”

…I think it’s fair to kindly inform the wielder that he/she is not making any sense.

I’ve seen it expressed in many different ways:

• “I hate the government, but anarchy would be even worse.”
• “Voting for radical reformers is one thing, but we shouldn’t just throw away our republic/democracy/whatever!”
• “Anarchists want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
•  ”Getting rid of the government is just quitting.  Corporations will take over, and that won’t solve anything.”

And so on.

In my experience, the idea that anarchism = “giving up” stems generally from the same type of misunderstanding that leads people to believe anarchists are all bomb-throwing terrorists.  Believe it or not, there’s no such thing as anarcho-terrorism.  Anarchists by and large have simply adopted the natural conclusion of libertarianism.  The images of violent teenagers so often affiliated with anarchy are, in all likelihood, not even representative of actual anarchists, or show people who have adopted the name only and are oblivious to any underlying philosophy.

So let’s be clear here that anarchism is the political philosophy that government is unnecessary.  Other qualifiers can be attached, such as opposition to hierarchy and capitalism (the latter being a subset of the former), all of which are interrelated, but “no rulers” is the main idea. Anarchists of all persuasions tend to hold in common the desire for a voluntary society, one that is as free from coercion as possible.  This is not a fanciful notion of utopia, but rather a recognition of the fact that people can organize freely.  Even if they can’t, that by extension eliminates any possibility of those same people being qualified to elect a competent government and any possibility that the government itself can ever be successful at anything beyond magnifying the ineptitude and ethical failings of its members and constituents to national or global proportions.

So when statists tell me anarchists are giving up, throwing the baby out with the bathwater, etc., I marvel at the irony.  It is the statists who have concluded that violent monopolies are necessary; that thuggery is a blight on civilization unless it is carried out by individuals in uniform with titles like “Officer” and “Corporal” and “Sergeant” in front of their names; that theft is undesirable unless carried out on a massive scale by properly ordained tax collectors and agents; that murder is undesirable unless carried out on a massive scale by properly ordained soldiers and law enforcement personnel, or ordered remotely by somone holding a particular office at a particular time, exercising his so-called right to shed the blood of so-called enemies using money he has stolen from his subjects, whom he claims to represent and work for.

In this world-view, a single death is indeed a tragedy, while a million deaths are a mere statistic.  And this is how it must be, they say, because this is what we are and what we will remain.

Who then has given up?  It is most certainly not the anarchists.

Anyone of a libertarian mind-set has probably had a conversation similar to this:

You: Government sucks.

Bob: Yes, but it’s necessary. People are stupid and evil, and life without government would degenerate into a chaotic dictatorship of corporate mobs and gang warfare.

Another common variant is the more succinct:

Bob: Humanity can’t be trusted with that much freedom.

The obvious problem with this line of reasoning is a heaping dose of self-defeat. If people are, as a rule, stupid, evil and predisposed to chaos and gang-based war, then the most irrational action one might take in pursuit of minimizing these consequences is the deliberate formation of such a gang. After all, those who would serve in government are members of the same human race as the rest of us. It cannot be declared that government is necessary because people are evil, while simultaneously exempting the people in government from this inherent evil.

Of course, the inevitable response to this is the catch-all solution: democracy!  We keep the undesirables out of office by simply not voting them in.  Power to the people . . . right?

Oh, wait.  People.  Stupid, evil, chaos-loving, warmongering people — who will almost certainly elect stupid, evil, chaos-loving, warmongering politicians.  It seems that democracy does not solve or even manage the problem.

There are other forms of government to consider, however.  Some form of technocratic oligarchy is an option, an enlightened elite exerting control through any variety of means.  There’s also the possibility of dictatorship or monarchy.  Still, this presents the question of why one group or class of humans is fundamentally different from all others.  Further, even if these enlightened elites succeed in securing a given society in the name of reason and peace, there’s nothing to stop the stupid, evil majority from undoing any hypothetical progress in a relatively short period of time.  Because, remember, the military and police and entrenched bureaucrats are likely not from the elite class, and even if they are, they will be outnumbered to a staggering and possibly unmanageable degree.  Additionally, due to the aforementioned conditions, the likelihood of any given elite or group of elites successfully imposing their will upon a stupid, evil populace is quite small.  Oligarchies, dictatorships and monarchies do not solve or even manage the problem.

The irony here is that, as the implications of an inherently stupid and evil human race are considered, the level of authoritarianism required in order to compensate for and combat it is essentially limitless.  This leads, of course, to the very chaos and gang warfare that is so often cited as the reason we must have a government in the first place.

Words to live by from the SHAGYA BLOG…

Anarchism and the Open Source Movement