Definitions
Prompted by the example of Bad Quaker Dot Com and the suggestion of @landfillpoet, I present below a list of my own sometimes peculiar definitions of words commonly used on this site, which I intend to elaborate upon in the near future and occasionally revise:
AGORIST: One who participates in the underground economy and thereby undermines the State, whether or not he does so with the revolutionary goals of Agorism in mind.
ANARCH: “The anarchist is the antagonist of the monarch, whom he dreams of wiping out. He gets the man and consolidates the succession. The -ism suffix has a restrictive meaning; it emphasizes the will at the expense of the substance. . . . The positive counterpart of the anarchist is the anarch. The latter is not the adversary of the monarch, but his antipode, untouched by him though also dangerous. . . . After all, the monarch wants to rule many, nay, all people; the anarch, only himself.” (Ernst Juenger)
ANARCHY: Rulerlessness. See, e.g., John Hasnas, The Depoliticization of Law.
CAPITALISM: ”That economic condition in which there is a class of capitalists, roughly recognizable and relatively small, in whose possession so much of the capital is concentrated as to necessitate a very large majority of the citizens serving those capitalists for a wage.” (G.K. Chesterton)
CONSERVATISM: “a habit of mind which does not generalize beyond the facts of the case in point. It considers those facts carefully, makes sure that as far as possible it has them all in hand, and the course of action which the balance of fact in that case indicates as necessary will be the one it follows; and the course indicated as unnecessary it not only will not follow, but will oppose without compromise or concession.” (Albert Jay Nock)
COMMUNALISM: “a theory or system of government in which virtually autonomous local communities are loosely bound in a federation.” (Murray Bookchin)
GOVERNMENT: The art and process of securing unalienable rights. Governing is therefore the antipode of politicking / law-making / legislating / ruling. Government is force, and therefore derives its powers from the consent of the governing rather than the governed. An equal right to land is among the unalienable rights with which all people are endowed, and therefore securing this right by means of a Single “Tax” on the unimproved value of land is a just power of government.
JESUITE: One who adheres to the ethical and spiritual teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, but who does not profess to know or “believe” as Christians do that Jesus was the Christ or uniquely God Incarnate. Cf. Jesuism. See also William Law and Leo Tolstoy. However, like Thomas the Apostle, the Jesuite while skeptical is open to future revelations and correction, and so may be called a Doubting Thomist. The Jesuite like the Jesuit is partial to casuistry, though not to the moral laxity it has been reputed to excuse.
JUSTICE: The absence of crime. Vices are not crimes. “Crimes are those acts by which one man harms [and intends to harm] the person or property of another.” (Lysander Spooner) Punishments are objectively crimes and are only just insofar as they prevent or somehow undo crimes.
LEFT: ”[T]he side of politics and economics that opposes the concentration of power and wealth and, instead, advocates and works toward the distribution of power into the maximum number of hands.” (Karl Hess)
LIBERTARIANISM: The limitation of governing to the necessary; implemented procedurally by the Presumption of Liberty, the Presumption of Innocence, and the Rule of Lenity.
RADICAL: Preferring a root-account of things. The antithesis of superficial. (Albert Jay Nock)
RIGHT: The side of politics and economics that supports the concentration of power. (Karl Hess)
STATE: “the name of the coldest of all cold monsters.” (Nietzsche, The New Idol) As war is the extension of politics by other means, the State is the continuation of conquest by other means. While government’s defining purpose is to secure unalienable rights, the State’s defining purpose is to violate them to benefit the ruler and/or the ruling class. In fact, the State is nothing more than a fraud perpetrated by the rulers to convince the ruled that the rulers have the right to rule. In fact, ruling is itself the greatest of crimes, and defines the State.
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