Read Parrish Miller on Immigration

Great thoughts, Parrish.  Thank you for writing about this important subject.  I love the top of your blog with the "hate the state" banner.  What's scaring me is that we now have libertarians who hate the state except on this one issue.

In order to have a realistic discussion about these important issues, we must first establish some basic definitions. The first important definition regards the nature of ownership. You own your own property. This includes your clothes, vehicles, and other personal possessions in addition to your buildings and real estate. As an owner you have the right to deny access to or use of your property to anyone for any reason (or even for no reason.) Ownership does not include an entire country, however. Neither the government nor the residents of a country have any legitimate claim of collective ownership over the totality of a country.

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Put simply, if no one is actually occupying your private property, you can’t claim that you are being invaded.

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Contrary to the arguments of those who oppose free immigration and open borders, it is actually immigration restrictions which infringe on the rights of property owners.

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Culture is not some fragile bird which must be protected from predators; rather culture is a living, growing thing which is only enhanced by the contributions of new individuals. The culture argument is particularly preposterous in the US where the culture (such as it exists) is a complex amalgamation of the various, preexisting cultures of immigrants from around the world. The idea that US culture has somehow reached an apex of perfection and that additional immigration will now dilute it rather than continue to build and improve it is pure poppycock.

It's hard not to quote the whole article because the writing is so clear and correct.  Keep up the good work, Parrish, and all others like you who stand for liberty.

Dear Noah

Oh, God, how long?
Dear Noah,

I'm not writing to Noah, of course.  He is dead.  I'm writing to any other soldier who is fighting like he was, thinking that people in the States support the war, and feeling terrible about what he is doing.  I'm writing to all the Noah's who are still out there.

Please don't misunderstand.  We are not for the war.  Certainly some people are, but many of us are not.  My family despises the war.  If there were a button we could push that would end the war immediately and bring home every American soldier overseas regardless of the consequences, we would push it without hesitation.

We don't call you heroes because we don't believe in what you are doing.  But we do love you, and we want the best for you.  We pray that the wars will cease and that you will come home.  Please don't feel hopeless and don't despair.  Please don't do yourself in like Noah did.  Most of us have terrible mistakes in our past but we all still have the chance to have a bright future.  The last century plus has left us with gigantic missing hunks out of each generation.  We do not want to lose your contribution as well.  I want my grandchildren to grow up playing peacefully with your grandchildren.  We both know that peace has a lot less to do with fighting over there and a lot more to do with simply being over here.

I would encourage you to get out at the first legal opportunity.  Apply for conscientious objector status.  Don't re-enlist.  Come home.  Withdraw as much of your support for what is going on as you legally can.  We have withdrawn our support here and will continue to work to try to spread the word that many people oppose the war, so that more will come out and oppose it.

I am so sorry for what you are going through.  God bless you and bring you home safe and sound to your families.

Another reason I'm no longer Republican

Another reason I'm proud I haven't been a Republican in a long time.  They actually make proposals like this, seriously.

Addendum: "This is shocking rhetoric," wrote Hillary Clinton. "It should be denounced by all seeking to lead this country."  And anyone seeking to "lead" this country should be denounced by all who live in this country.  Grown people don't need "leaders."  And the real term for it is "rulers."

The philosophy of liberty

This says it all:

The Philosophy of Liberty is really the best, most concise, and most understandable explanation I have seen of how to determine what is right and wrong in the realm of politics.  Any law that cannot be justified on the basis of these principles is unjust.  Any time a freedom lover, anarchist, libertarian, or voluntaryist justifies force to violate these principles, he or she is making a terrible mistake.

I've seen people in these camps (or this camp) occasionally veer off of these principles for causes that might seem "left-wing" or "right-wing" or might not seem to fit into either category.  At the same time, I've seen people who've never even seen this presentation follow these principles perfectly.  This is what libertarianism is about (and all those other groups I listed above).  This is what morality is about.  Everything else involves initiating force against people who have done nothing wrong.

Armistice Day / St. Martin's Day

Today is Armistice Day, a day for celebrating the only thing worth celebrating about war: when it's over.

Today's a good day to go read about The Christmas Truce.  Maybe even view Joyeux Noël.

More great viewing today is this amazing cartoon from 1939: Peace on Earth.  Or its 1955 remake, Good Will to Men.  Perhaps those who lived through the disastrous great wars of the twentieth century did not worship warfare as we are sometimes led to believe.

Today is also St. Martin's Day, honoring Martin of Tours, who refused to continue to fight in Caesar's army after he became a Christian.  Martin later opposed execution as a punishment for heresy, rightly recognizing that Christians could not support using the state to punish religious error.

Checks and balances

There are no genuine checks and balances in the American political system.  The only genuine check and balance would be "I don't have to give you my check if I do not agree with your agenda."  Since in the American system, the minority are forced to comply with the agenda of the majority, if only for a few years, there is no check and balance on government power, and as we have seen for over two hundred years, it grows without limit.

Imagine a world where nobody had to pay for a war they did not approve of.

Kim Davis

This whole thing is just ridiculous.  A clerk refuses to issue marriage licenses and instead of realizing that nobody should have the power to issue marriage licenses and eliminating her office, we make a good example out of her.

Because punishment is more fun than fixing the problem!

Also, notice that once again we have a bigger government telling a little government what to do.  That means that when the bigger government starts to oppress you (whoever you are, gay, straight, Christian, or whatever), the government that is closer to you will not be able to protect your rights.  Everybody ought to be afraid of that, and people on one side of the continent ought to quit telling people on the other side of the continent what to do.

Why Conservatives are enemies of the Constitution

Why Conservatives are enemies of the Constitution.

To: Christians Re: Gay Marriage

Dear Christians: you married the state.  You married the entire government of the United States of America and insisted that nobody be allowed to divorce it. You made this world your home, you made an alliance with everybody in these borders regardless of faith or denomination, to live by rules picked by the majority.

You made this decision. You asked to live this way. You bought this. Now you own it.

Sincerely,
your brother Christian Anarchist, David

P.S. In the future, I would suggest you look to I Peter 4:15 as a standard for your behavior.  We have been violating it greatly on this issue, and many others.
http://biblehub.com/1_peter/4-15.htm

Gay marriage

Should force be initiated against two people of the same sex who want to be married or consider themselves married?  My answer is no.

Should force be initiated against somebody who wants to consider two married people to be unmarried?  Somebody who wants to have a different definition of marriage as somebody else?  My answer is no.

I don't believe we should get our way in life at the expense of the freedom of other people.

Gay marriage

While I believe in permitting people to enter into whatever relationships they please, I do not favor bigger governments telling smaller governments what to do, or governments telling people what relationships they must accept or how they must behave towards those who are in those relationships.

The Confederate Flag

I regard flags mostly as items of worship, items that inspire mindless loyalty and disobedience to the laws of nature and of nature's God in the name of "patriotism."

My heart cries for the victims of murderous racist violence in Charleston, and for all victims of racism everywhere.  The young man who perpetrated this evil is in my opinion clearly insane.  His writings contain no hint of rationality.

As for the flag that has caused many so much pain and has been used as a symbol of things good and bad by so many people, the real question is not the past, but the future.  If today a state desires to secede (certainly for some reason besides slavery), should it be forcibly held or released?  And if a county or a city or a household desire to secede from their state, should force be used?

Please don't

Please don't vote for Hillary Clinton, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, or anybody else to "lead" me.  If you want to follow them, be my guest, but I don't want to or need to.

I don't need "leadership."  When I want help I ask for it from people of my choosing, and the rest of the time I get along just fine.  I respect your right to life, liberty, and property, and I ask that you do the same for me and my family.  As long as we respect this right in each other we should be free to follow or not follow any leaders we choose.  The idea that you might impose a leader on me is the opposite of respecting my right to liberty.  As long as I have not infringed any these three rights you have no call for restricting my liberty or imposing anything on me at all.  If I start encroaching on these rights of yours then certainly you have the right to imprison or enslave me or whatever it takes to secure your freedom.

It doesn't take a vote for you to follow whatever leader you want.  Voting is not selecting a leader for yourself - it is imposing a ruler on other people.

I Can Lead This Country?

Sometimes I feel like other people must be getting some other meaning out of the words I am hearing.  The things people are saying make no sense to me.

Today Marco Rubio announced he is running for election as President of the United States, saying "I can lead this country."

This sentence makes absolutely no sense to me, at least if it's supposed to inspire me to support Mr. Rubio.  Am I supposed to think that what "this country" is lacking is leadership?  Is that supposed to be something we all agree is the great need right now - leadership?

It sounds just like panel nine in this illustrated abridgement of F. A. Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom."  If you haven't read that, you really should, and you might follow up by reading Economics in One Lesson by the brilliant Henry Hazlitt.

In my mind, nobody educated is looking for "leadership."  The main problem we are facing is not a lack of leadership - it's the presence of leadership.  Unfortunately we are not free to prosper; we are beholden to a parasitic ruler class that styles itself "leaders" and wrongly fancies itself our benefactors.

I know what I want to do, and for the most part I know how to achieve it, and when I do not know, I know who I like to ask for help.  I don't need to be led.  It's extremely patronizing for anyone to think we will be inspired to like them when they offer to lead us.

So why isn't everybody up in arms about it?

Dear Senator Cruz

Dear Senator Cruz,

I am a fundamentalist Christian from Texas.  I will not be voting for you as President, or anyone else.  Please get out of my life.  Thank you.

Imagine a President who sides with Israel?  Frankly, I'd like to imagine a President who doesn't side with Israel.  Better yet, I'd like to imagine a permanent vacancy in the Presidency, or secession for Texas, secession for my county, and secession for my household.  Maybe I sound a bit like a hippie, but since you've got me started imagining, I'll visualize world peace.  Of course, it will only happen if people quit letting others have the power that you have and are seeking.

Down with Mordor, down with the Presidency, down with your office.

P.S. to any Democrats reading: I won't be voting for you, either.