The Zeroth Position

Ever since Donald Trump became the Republican presidential nominee in 2016, there has been a concerted effort by the establishment to do whatever they can to stop him. Publicizing scandalous materials, weaponizing intelligence agencies, voting, marching, protesting, and political violence were all tried, and none managed to keep him from gaining the Presidency. As such, the focus of the leftist vanguard has shifted to impeachment as a means to remove Trump from office, regardless of the facts of the case. Though the Democratic Party leadership has sought to distance itself from such efforts thus far,[1,2] more ardent leftist activists are...

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By Darien Sumner On July 23, Social Matter published an article by Mark Christensen titled “We Need Tremendous Government: Why Conservative Mythology Must Be Disrupted”. His contention is that modern conservatism has long been dominated by libertarians who want to shrink government purely for its own sake, with no attention paid to the costs or consequences. Conservatives, therefore, should rebel against this negative influence and get back to what he contends is the root of conservative thought: Making America Great Again. To do so, it is necessary to embrace the power of the state as a tool for advancing conservative...

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The New Wealth of Nations is a book about the decline of world poverty by Indian economist Surjit S. Bhalla. The book explores the role of education in bringing this about, the failures of current measures of inequality, and possible changes to government welfare programs to accommodate changing conditions. The opening chapter considers the accelerated growth of the third world relative to advanced economies in recent decades. Bhalla posits greater equality in education as the cause, making the case through much of the rest of the book. His near-obsession with equality between the sexes and belief in its unalloyed goodness...

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By Insula Qui Producerism is a unique view of political and social philosophy. To completely understand this theory, we first have to establish how ideologies are constructed. For any ideology, it is important that there is a base value. There must be some value-judgment above all other value-judgments. (There are two other key requirements for a set of ideas to be an ideology, but we will deal with them later.) For libertarianism I have identified the base value as efficiency. When presented with a choice between the value of liberty and the value of efficiency, most libertarians will choose efficiency....

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Libertarianism within a leviathan state functions not as a governing philosophy, but as a critique of excesses, i.e. the cases in which state power is used in an unusually pernicious manner. These efforts have had varying degrees of success, depending on how well libertarians can convince major party operatives and wealthy financiers of the wisdom of restraining the state on one issue or another. Unfortunately, mainstream libertarians seem to have a blind spot, if not an outright case of political autism, when it comes to corporate power. Free-market conservatives, reactionaries, and traditionalists also view corporations far too positively. Let us...

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By Benjamin Welton As some American eggheads say, there could not have been 1787 without 1215. The legacy of Philadelphia starts at Runnymede. Put more bluntly, the U.S. Constitution would not exist without the Magna Carta that was signed by King John of England. America's political culture, ideals, and most of its founding stock come from the British Isles. As such, arguing that American documents have an English lineage is entirely sensible. America's Bill of Rights is based on and not much different from the Bill of Rights that English Protestants ratified in 1689 following the Glorious Revolution. There a...

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The fundamental concern of libertarianism is the question of what constitutes the acceptable use of force. The primary objective of reactionaries is to correct bad decisions and undo the damage done by them in order to establish, secure, and advance a healthy and stable social order. Adherents of these political ideologies thus share an interest in determining the optimal level of force needed to maintain civilization. Finding the correct balance is the overarching question of proper statecraft as applied to domestic policy. Let us attempt to do this by defining scales of force usage, considering the role of a sovereign...

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On the June 19 episode of Fox News Channel's “The Story with Martha MacCallum”, substitute host Sandra Smith had former Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and Democratic Party strategist Zac Petkanas on for a segment about Trump's zero-tolerance immigration policy, which at that time included separating children from adults when they cross the border illegally. Petkanas began with a story he read about a 10-year-old girl with Down syndrome who was separated from her mother. He neglected to mention that the mother was suspected of involvement with a child trafficking ring and was detained for that reason. Lewandowski responded...

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Since the beginning of recorded history, a teleological element has been present in historical narratives. The precise form of this element has varied through places and times, but historians have always offered some sense of where we are going and what the future may hold. This is an understandable impulse; humans are the only extant species with the ability to conceive of the future in a meaningful way and make long-term plans beyond the horizon of gathering food for the winter. Making plans of worth requires having some idea of future conditions. In pre-modern times when social and technological progress...

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The revelation of clandestine personal information has occurred for as long as clandestine personal information has existed. This has been practiced throughout human history as intelligence gathering by states and private firms, investigation of crimes, security testing, harassment, social shaming, blackmail, and vigilantism.[1] In the age of the Internet, the researching and broadcasting of private, personally identifiable information about individuals and organizations has become easier than ever, and thus a more serious problem. Let us consider the nature of the practice known as doxxing, the possible effects on victims, and potential countermeasures. The Nature and Effects of Doxxing By using...

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By Benjamin Welton On May 2, it was reported that the Boy Scouts will no longer be the “boy” scouts. Now and forever, the Boy Scouts will be a co-ed club called the Scouts BSA. The name change will be effective in February 2019, according to the Washington Post. Effie Delimarkos, the spokeswoman for the Scouts, said “Scouts BSA perfectly represents the new, inclusive program for older Scouts that the Boy Scouts of America is proud to offer.” Chief Scout Executive Michael Surbaugh invoked the social-justice buzzword inclusive again while talking to the Associated Press, parroting that the new Scouts...

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Since its first enactment in New Zealand in 1894[1], minimum wage laws have interfered with the market process of determining the price of labor. Such laws now exist in most countries. Proponents claim that a minimum wage improves living standards and worker morale while reducing inequality and poverty.[2] Libertarians and conservatives have tried ad nauseum to oppose the existence or increase of the minimum wage,[3,4] to little avail. It is therefore necessary to try a different approach. Let us see how minimum wage hikes can undermine the legacy economic system, and thus why one might agree with statists for the...

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By Insula Qui Author’s note: This is the final article in this series for now, not because there is nothing more to be said about libertarian statecraft, but because I have said everything that I can say with confidence. Expect more articles in the same vein, but this should serve as a good foundational document for libertarian statecraft. I post far more experimental ideas about the topic on the Libertarchy Blog. Furthermore, my book “Anarcho-Monarchism” has all the theory that preceded the view developed in these articles. I am grateful for the sustained interest and hope that I have started...

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The practice of capital punishment has long been controversial, as it is an ultimate expression of collective power over the individual as well as an irreparable harm if carried out in error. Those who oppose the death penalty may view it as a human rights violation, as unnecessarily cruel and degrading. They may cite the state's incompetence in actually carrying out executions, the suffering of the condemned person's family, the decades that many prisoners spend on death row, and the refusal to attempt rehabilitation of the criminal. Those who support it may believe that the worst crimes constitute a forfeiture...

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By Insula Qui Author’s note: The main themes of this series are further expounded upon in my book Anarcho-Monarchism, which you can buy here. Introduction To the conservative-minded, the most objectionable part of libertarianism is the seeming inability to reconcile virtue and decent behavior with a libertarian social order. To resolve this issue, there is a need to consider two alternatives to a more commonplace libertarian social order and propose a coherent critique of a regime with unlimited free imposition of costs with regard to immaterial externalities. What are libertarians able to do against bad neighbors, and what can libertarians...

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Verse 1: Hey there Mr. Politician Man Tell me my favorite lies About how we're all gonna be OK If we just let you drive About how you're gonna take care of us If we just walk the line Pay those taxes and national debts Fight wars and maybe die While you flaunt laws and break promises And live large on our dime Take all your bribes and backroom deals Debase our money supply Chorus 1: Yeah, Mr. Politician Man You bring us only blight Yeah, Mr. Politician Man Let's cut you down to size Verse 2: Hey there Mr....

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By Insula Qui Author’s note: The main themes of this series are further expounded upon in my book Anarcho-Monarchism, which you can buy here. Introduction Time preference is a measure of valuing present goods versus future goods. High time preference (hereafter HTP) is a condition of preferring present goods, of being unable or unwilling to wait before engaging in consumption. Low time preference (hereafter LTP) is an ability and willingness to save for the future. LTP requires both that the cost of waiting is sufficiently low and that one have the self-discipline to avoid the temptation of HTP. Note that...

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By Benjamin Welton Many doomsayers wrote President Donald Trump's political epitaph on April 14, when a coalition of American, British, and French warships and aircraft bombed Syria in response to a chemical attack in the city of Douma. Pro- and anti-Trumpers alike poured forth word salads about how the man who promised to end America's never-ending wars in the Muslim world was dragging the United States into the Syrian Civil War. So far, those fears seem overblown. The Pentagon reports that a total of 105 missiles were deployed over Syria by the Western powers, with most hitting virtually abandoned military...

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A significant portion of my work consists of critiquing arguments, decisions, and statements made by other people. But sometimes, the lens of examination is best turned inward to correct one's own missteps. Such is the case for an article I wrote last year about the nature of degenerate behavior. In that article, I started with the dictionary definition of degeneracy as “sexual perversion” and degenerate as “having declined or become less specialized (as in nature, character, structure, or function) from an ancestral or former state”, “having sunk to a lower and usually corrupt and vicious state”, “one degraded from the...

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By Insula Qui Author’s note: The main themes of this series are further expounded upon in my book Anarcho-Monarchism, which you can buy here. Introduction The first eight parts of this series demonstrated that libertarian governance is both necessary and desirable, explained how it ought to be structured, and showed that statism is inferior to libertarian statecraft. The next task, which will occupy the remainder of this series, is to explore the nature of wise statecraft. The principles laid out here will apply to all statecraft, whether done on an individual, collective, or even statist level. However, these principles of...

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Agreeing With Statists For The Wrong Reasons: Impeach Donald Trump Aug 17, 2018

The Myth of Tremendous Government: A Reply to Mark Christensen Aug 11, 2018

Book Review: The New Wealth of Nations Aug 8, 2018

The Producerist Theory of Society and Civilization Aug 3, 2018

The Case Against Corporations Jul 28, 2018

Against the Magna Carta Jul 20, 2018

How Much Force is Best for Civilization? Jul 12, 2018

Womp For Victory Jun 29, 2018

Introducing Agnostic History Jun 22, 2018

Dealing With Doxxing Jun 10, 2018

How Leftism Killed the Boy Scouts Jun 4, 2018

Agreeing With Statists For The Wrong Reasons: Minimum Wage May 30, 2018

On Libertarianism and Statecraft, Part XII: Greed May 25, 2018

Capital Punishment as Ritual Magick for Social Order May 19, 2018

On Libertarianism and Statecraft, Part XI: Immaterial Externalities May 12, 2018

Song Lyrics: Mr. Politician Man May 1, 2018

On Libertarianism and Statecraft, Part X: Time Preference Apr 29, 2018

On American Intervention in Syria Apr 25, 2018

On Degeneracy, Loss, and Civilization Apr 21, 2018

On Libertarianism and Statecraft, Part IX: Trust Apr 20, 2018