The official demonization of “anarchists” by State propagandizers continues on apace, in this instance by an agent of an “agency”-without-principals which intends to violently evict Occupy protesters from Portland parks this weekend. Meanwhile, a real-life “anarch” (leader of leaderlessness), Wendy McElroy, explores, at the Daily Anarchist, what an anarchist system of justice might look like, and in reply to a comment on her post writes:

At some point, you have to do a comparative assessment and choose the system that does it best rather than does it ‘right’…because there is no right. That’s the horror of violence. It sets the natural order so viciously out of whack that it may not be possible to ever return it to ‘right’. My ideal “just system” is 90% prevention so that you don’t have to deal with raped women, traumatized children, men killed for $10 in their wallets. Imagine a free market law enforcement industry that actually existed to prevent violence, that drew its customer salary from the efficiency with which it managed to prevent violence. What a revolution that would be! Oh Brave New World in which I wish to live.

I contributed the following comments (slightly edited) to the discussion in the comments section on Wendy’s post:

I’ve recently been thinking that anarchic justice should depend on “consensus” rather than “consent,” manifested in a common-law, customary-law kind of system. As John Hasnas has argued, such a system properly understood is free market law. Law is rarely based on consent. The thief caught shoplifting or committing more serious crimes presumably will only rarely “consent” to the consequences imposed by society. It should take a consensus of society to impose any restriction on liberty. Punishments, whether of the restitution or retribution / deterrence / incapacitation variety (and I think the limitations of a restitution-only paradigm are seen in the hypothetical murder of a homeless man with no family or friends to whom restitution for his “wrongful death” might be paid), should likewise be no harsher than a consensus of society approves. Consensus is the social embodiment of the Presumption of Innocence, which is fundamental to a free society. Consensus is only practical in small groups, which points the way to a society of Thomas Jefferson’s “ward republics” and to confederation along the lines of the Great Law of Peace of the Iroquois Confederacy, which operated by consensus.

. . .

It all depends on what the conventions are. Right now the conventions that prevail in society are very unlibertarian. Specifically, these conventions hold the text of a Constitution put together by men long dead for less than noble purposes 200 years ago to be binding on the living, and vulgarly and arbitrarily equate democracy with the will of the majority (even a bare majority of 51%). It seems the goal of libertarianism is precisely to change those conventions. Apparently in contrast to many posters here, I think the so-called Rule of Lenity is a convention at the heart of liberty. So is the Presumption of Innocence. So is the notion that “government” derives its just powers from the “consent of the governed,” but instead of speaking of the “consent of the governed” I’d speak of the “consensus of the self-governing.” If 95%+ of the people in a community agree that it is just to use force to prevent or punish murder that’s a pretty good indication that force is in fact justified to prevent or punish murder, and it’s pretty clear that in any event murder isn’t going to be tolerated by that community. On the other hand, if only 75% agree that it is just to use force to prevent or punish eating magic mushrooms that’s a pretty good indication that force is not justified to prevent or punish eating magic mushrooms, and a society which values consensus and applies societally the same presumption against violence that decent people generally apply as individuals will not use force to prevent or punish eating magic mushrooms, even if, hypothetically, 75% think such force would be justified and 95% think eating magic mushrooms is “immoral.”

. . .

Ideally, the so-called traditional common law, which John Hasnas illuminates as depoliticized law, reflects reason and natural law, and its evolution is likewise guided by reason and natural law. Each case is to be decided on the basis of Justice, informed by how such cases have been decided before.

. . .

I urge all anarchists to give Henry George a second look. Georgism represents a principle by which such claims [to land] may rest not only on force but on justice. I’m of the opinion that in an anarchic society “national defense” (i.e., defense not of a nation but defense from nations) will still be necessary, that such defense will necessarily be defense of a territory by those in the territory, and that Georgism would provide the natural means of funding such defense.

Our Enemy, the State, by Albert Jay Nock, whom I personally regard as my number one libertarian muse, is shot through with Georgism.

. . .

The Hasnas article on “The Depoliticization of Law” is also directly on point: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=987829

. . .

Consensus, as I conceive it, is close to or identical with the very essence of anarchism, and of the “libertarian framework.” In the realm of collective action it whittles the use of force down to what Nietzsche called the “song of the necessary,” in the same diatribe in which he called the State the “coldest of all cold monsters.” Unless “we” all agree violence is necessary and justified, “we” don’t use violence.

. . .

I think Justice is most appropriately defined not positively but negatively, as “the absence of crime.” All the things we do to try to fight or deter or somehow provide “satisfaction” for crime are then seen to be “justice” only in a secondary and derivative sense. The criminal defense attorney serves Justice more directly than the prosecutor.

Albert Jay Nock notes what I think is the relevant distinction:

As the word masses is commonly used, it suggests agglomerations of poor and underprivileged people, labouring people, proletarians, and it means nothing like that; it means simply the majority. The mass-man is one who has neither the force of intellect to apprehend the principles issuing in what we know as the humane life, nor the force of character to adhere to those principles steadily and strictly as laws of conduct; and because such people make up the great and overwhelming majority of mankind, they are called collectively the masses. The line of differentiation between the masses and the Remnant is set invariably by quality, not by circumstance. The Remnant are those who by force of intellect are able to apprehend these principles, and by force of character are able, at least measurably, to cleave to them. The masses are those who are unable to do either.

Poverty causes crime, and the State causes Poverty. We should bitch about that rather than bitch about poor people having babies they can’t afford. Thomas Jefferson seems to have understood:

The property of this country is absolutely concentred in a very few hands, having revenues of from half a million of guineas a year downwards. These employ the flower of the country as servants, some of them having as many as 200 domestics, not laboring. They employ also a great number of manufacturers and tradesmen, and lastly the class of laboring husbandmen. But after all there comes the most numerous of all classes, that is, the poor who cannot find work. I asked myself what could be the reason so many should be permitted to beg who are willing to work, in a country where there is a very considerable proportion of uncultivated lands? These lands are undisturbed only for the sake of game. It should seem then that it must be because of the enormous wealth of the proprietors which places them above attention to the increase of their revenues by permitting these lands to be labored. I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable, but the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property, only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind. The descent of property of every kind therefore to all the children, or to all the brothers and sisters, or other relations in equal degree, is a politic measure and a practicable one. Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions or property in geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on. If for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be provided to those excluded from the appropriation. If we do not, the fundamental right to labor the earth returns to the unemployed. It is too soon yet in our country to say that every man who cannot find employment, but who can find uncultivated land, shall be at liberty to cultivate it, paying a moderate rent. But it is not too soon to provide by every possible means that as few as possible shall be without a little portion of land. The small landholders are the most precious part of a state.

Any man knows when he is justified, and all the wits in the world cannot enlighten him on that point. The murderer always knows that he is justly punished; but when a government takes the life of a man without the consent of his conscience, it is an audacious government, and is taking a step towards its own dissolution. Is it not possible that an individual may be right and a government wrong? Are laws to be enforced simply because they were made? or declared by any number of men to be good, if they are not good? Is there any necessity for a man’s being a tool to perform a deed of which his better nature disapproves? Is it the intention of law-makers that good men shall be hung ever? Are judges to interpret the law according to the letter, and not the spirit? What right have you to enter into a compact with yourself that you will do thus or so, against the light within you? Is it for you to make up your mind, — to form any resolution whatever, — and not accept the convictions that are forced upon you, and which ever pass your understanding? I do not believe in lawyers, in that mode of attacking or defending a man, because you descend to meet the judge on his own ground, and, in cases of the highest importance, it is of no consequence whether a man breaks a human law or not. Let lawyers decide trivial cases. Business men may arrange that among themselves. If they were the interpreters of the everlasting laws which rightfully bind man, that would be another thing. A counterfeiting law-factory, standing half in a slave land and half in free! What kind of laws for free men can you expect from that?

I am here to plead his cause with you. I plead not for his life, but for his character, — his immortal life; and so it becomes your cause wholly, and is not his in the least. Some eighteen hundred years ago Christ was crucified; this morning, perchance, Captain Brown was hung. These are the two ends of a chain which is not without its links. He is not Old Brown any longer; he is an angel of light.

The post I was going to write, until I got sidetracked, would have been prompted by the piquant comments IOZ incurred for declaring himself a radical but not a revolutionary. It would have cited Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience:

It is not a man’s duty, as a mat­ter of course, to de­vote him­self to the erad­i­cat­ion of any, even the most enor­mous wrong; he may still prop­erly have other con­cerns to en­gage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it prac­ti­cally his sup­port. If I de­vote my­self to other pur­suits and con­tem­plat­ions, I must first see, at least, that I do not pur­sue them sit­ting upon an­other man’s shoul­ders. I must get off him first, that he may pur­sue his con­tem­plat­ions too. See what gross in­con­sis­tency is tol­er­a­ted. I have heard some of my towns­men say, “I should like to have them or­der me out to help put down an in­sur­rec­tion of the slaves, or to march to Mex­ico, — see if I would go;” and yet these very men have each, di­rectly by their al­le­giance, and so in­di­rectly, at least, by their money, fur­nished a sub­sti­tute.

. . .

As for adopt­ing the ways which the State has pro­vided for rem­edy­ing the evil, I know not of such ways. They take too much time, and a man’s life will be gone. I have other af­fairs to at­tend to. I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad. A man has not ev­ery thing to do, but some­thing; and be­cause he can­not do ev­ery thing, it is not nec­es­sary that he should do some­thing wrong. It is not my busi­ness to be pe­ti­tion­ing the governor or the legislature any more than it is theirs to pe­ti­tion me; and, if they should not hear my pe­ti­tion, what should I do then? But in this case the State has pro­vided no way: its very Constitution is the evil. This may seem to be harsh and stub­born and un­con­cil­i­a­tory; but it is to treat with the ut­most kind­ness and con­sid­er­ation the only spirit that can ap­pre­ci­ate or de­serves it. So is all change for the bet­ter, like birth and death which con­vulse the body.

. . .

How­ever, the gov­ern­ment does not con­cern me much, and I shall be­stow the few­est pos­si­ble thoughts on it. It is not many mo­ments that I live un­der a gov­ern­ment, even in this world. If a man is thought-free, fancy-free, imag­i­na­tion-free, that which is not never for a long time ap­pear­ing to be to him, un­wise rulers or re­form­ers can­not fa­tally in­ter­rupt him.

The post I would have written if I hadn’t gotten sidetracked would also have cited Albert Jay Nock on Isaiah’s Job:

The prophet’s career began at the end of King Uzziah’s reign, say about 740 B.C. This reign was uncommonly long, almost half a century, and apparently prosperous. It was one of those prosperous reigns, however – like the reign of Marcus Aurelius at Rome, or the administration of Eubulus at Athens, or of Mr. Coolidge at Washington – where at the end the prosperity suddenly peters out and things go by the board with a resounding crash.

In the year of Uzziah’s death, the Lord commissioned the prophet to go out and warn the people of the wrath to come. “Tell them what a worthless lot they are.” He said, “Tell them what is wrong, and why and what is going to happen unless they have a change of heart and straighten up. Don’t mince matters. Make it clear that they are positively down to their last chance. Give it to them good and strong and keep on giving it to them. I suppose perhaps I ought to tell you,” He added, “that it won’t do any good. The official class and their intelligentsia will turn up their noses at you and the masses will not even listen. They will all keep on in their own ways until they carry everything down to destruction, and you will probably be lucky if you get out with your life.”

Isaiah had been very willing to take on the job – in fact, he had asked for it – but the prospect put a new face on the situation. It raised the obvious question: Why, if all that were so – if the enterprise were to be a failure from the start – was there any sense in starting it? “Ah,” the Lord said, “you do not get the point. There is a Remnant there that you know nothing about. They are obscure, unorganized, inarticulate, each one rubbing along as best he can. They need to be encouraged and braced up because when everything has gone completely to the dogs, they are the ones who will come back and build up a new society; and meanwhile, your preaching will reassure them and keep them hanging on. Your job is to take care of the Remnant, so be off now and set about it.”

A comment by Ryan from Absurd Results on this post about the Georgist “Single Tax” and Thomas Jefferson’s “Ward System” gave me the opportunity to once again formulate, summarize, and clarify my political wish list. Ryan wrote:

As for Georgism, I have to admit, I find it intriguing—even more so when combined with Jefferson’s ward system. Actually, I think the ward system (which sounds a lot like Michael Rozeff’s panarchy) would be essential for a single tax regime, for it would more likely keep closed the door to statism by making the wards compete for citizens.

Still, the ward system worries me a little because the political class—that is, those that have the power to tax, taken collectively—has a knack for finding ways to expand its jurisdiction. It’s for this reason that I’m partial to Hans Hoppe’s notion of a private law society. Under his conception, security is provided on a subscription basis instead of on a jurisdictional basis. This takes a so-called “public good” like security and moves it into the private sphere, thereby eliminating the need for taxation. I have to think that by taking away the two hallmarks of Statism—taxation and jurisdiction—freedom would flourish.

I replied [links added]:

I’m not sure that even under conditions of “anarchy,” or a state of nature, that we could get away from the need for territorial defense, security, and “government.” A single landlord, or landholder, is in a sense a “government,” claiming jurisdiction over a particular territory, and having the need to secure his claim. By what right would he maintain his claim? I’d suggest that Georgism might form the conditions for establishing the justice of his claim vis-a-vis other landholders and would-be landholders in the immediate area, as well as the fund by which the people in that area might defend their claims relative to each other and relative to external threats. The need for so-called “national defense” is to my mind the strongest objection to anarchism (though I’d clarify it’s not so much the need to defend the “nation” as it is to defend a would-be anarchic territory from existing nations). The anarchic impulse, and the impulse of the ward system, is to devolve the authority and responsibility for such defense to smaller and smaller areas, ultimately vesting it in the individual landholders themselves, who would likely find it advisable to confederate with others for their mutual defense, keeping their confederacies as small as is consistent with the needs of territorial defense (recognizing that the larger the confederacy and the more concentrated its power the larger the threat to the freedoms of its constituents). As I see it, these base-line confederacies formed strictly for territorial defense could co-exist with the kinds of associations and private law systems envisioned by Rozeff’s panarchy.

I have to credit “Our Enemy, the State,” by Albert Jay Nock, who considered himself an anarchist, for selling me on both Georgism and Jefferson’s “ward system.”

How might we ever get from here to there? First and foremost, by puncturing the pretensions of the State. And I can think of no better authority to quote on this score than Martin Luther King, Jr., for whom a federal holiday is named for Christ’s sake:

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”

Seattle crime-fighting “superhero” Phoenix Jones knows he has it, and more power to him.

The Indiana Supreme Court, on the other hand, despite all the public outrage over its decision in Barnes v. State, continues to insist that in Indiana the Castle Doctrine is no longer a defense to the crime of battery (defined by the Indiana Code as “touch[ing] . . . in a rude, insolent, or angry manner”) when it’s a police officer rather than a mere mundane (whom Hoosiers are as free to batter as before) whose unlawful residential entry a homeowner tries to prevent or terminate by such “touching.” (Interestingly, the Court’s opinion on rehearing doesn’t mention the statutory definition of battery, and appears to implicitly broaden it, by denying the right of homeowners even to “get physical” with police officers. But I can easily imagine “getting physical” in ways that don’t necessarily involve touching in a “rude, insolent, or angry manner.” Can a bouncer who bodily and forcefully but otherwise calmly and non-violently removes a belligerent drunk from a bar automatically be said to touch him “rudely” or “insolently” or “angrily”? This would seem like exactly the kind of question a jury should decide. But the very point of Barnes v. State was to preclude the jury from deciding this kind of question.)

1. The Bankers won’t be taxed unless they want to be taxed. They own the fucking State.

2. Although it’s certainly more evil to steal from the poor than from the rich, every dime in the hands of the State, whether that dime comes from the rich or from the poor, is a dime in the hands of our Enemy.

A proper understanding of religion is key, because those who think that religion is even more dangerous than government certainly have a point and a lot of history on their side. Now, I don’t purport to myself really “understand” what needs to be understood, nor do I imagine or intend that anything I write on this blog will “convert” anyone to anything. I am not qualified to teach. But what I nevertheless propose to do in the next few posts is share some things I’ve been reading about religion that seem right to me. In this recent post I recommended, on the authority of Albert Jay Nock and Aldous Huxley, two works by William Law, The Spirit of Prayer and The Spirit of Love. I’ve since read both, and was duly impressed, but must admit that I was a little discouraged at first when I began reading them, because these works are not totally free of what I might describe as an extraneous and unnecessary cosmology. What I propose to do, therefore, is excerpt here in a few blog posts some of what rang true for me. (If Mike at Crime & Federalism can write about what he writes about, it seems I too can without cheating my few and loyal readers take this detour into a topic not advertised by the title of this blog.) And I admit that this project is motivated by a mild case of temporary blogging burn-out, and by the sense that one can only say “fuck the government” so many times and in so many different ways before the negativity kind of gets to you.

So without further ado, for this post’s installment, from The Spirit of Love:

[Love-2.1-154] The Apostle saith, “Avenge not yourselves, for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I Will repay, saith the Lord.”

[Love-2.1-155] This is another full Proof, that Wrath or Vengeance is not in the holy Deity itself, as a Quality of the Divine Mind; for if it was, then Vengeance would belong to every Child of God, that was truly born of Him, or he could not have the Spirit of his Father, or be perfect as his Father in Heaven is perfect.

[Love-2.1-156] But if Vengeance only belongs to God, and can only be so affirmed of Him, as Ice and Frost are His, and belong to Him, if it has no other Manner of Working, than as when it is said, “He sent out his Arrows and scattered them, He cast forth Lightnings and destroyed them”; then it is certain, that the Divine Vengeance is only in fallen Nature, and its disordered Properties, and is no more in the Deity itself, than Hailstones and Coals of Fire.

[Love-2.1-157] And here you have the true Reason, why Revenge or Vengeance is not allowed to Man; it is because Vengeance can only work in the evil, or disordered Properties of fallen Nature. But Man being Himself a Part of fallen Nature, and subject to its disordered Properties, is not allowed to work with them, because it would be stirring up Evil in himself, and that is his Sin of Wrath, or Revenge.

[Love-2.1-158] God therefore reserves all Vengeance to Himself, not because wrathful Revenge is a Temper or Quality that can have any Place in the Holy Deity, but because the holy supernatural Deity, being free from all the Properties of Nature, whence partial Love and Hatred spring, and being in Himself nothing but an Infinity of Love, Wisdom, and Goodness, He alone knows how to over-rule the Disorders of Nature, and so to repay Evil with Evil, that the highest good may be promoted by it.

[Love-2.1-159] To say, therefore, that Vengeance is to be reserved to God, is only saying in other Words, that all the Evils in Nature are to be reserved and turned over to the Love of God, to be healed by his Goodness. And every Act of what is called Divine Vengeance, recorded in Scripture, may, and ought, with the greatest strictness of Truth, be called an Act of the Divine Love.

. . .

[Love-2.1-166] Hear these decisive words of Scripture, viz., “Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth.” What a Grossness therefore of Mistake is it to conclude, that Wrath must be in the Deity, because He chastens and threatens Chastisement, when you have God’s own Word for it, that nothing but his Love chasteneth? Again, Thus saith the Lord, “I have smitten you with Blasting and Mildew. Your Vineyards, and your Fig Trees, and your Olive Yards, did the Palmer-Worm devour,” and then the Love that did this makes this Complaint, “Yet ye have not returned to me.” Again, “Pestilence have I sent amongst you; I have made the Stink of your Tents come up even into your Nostrils,” &c. And then the same Love that did this, that made this Use of the disordered Elements, makes the same Complaint again, “Yet have ye not returned to me” (Amos 4:9-10).

[Love-2.1-167] Now, Sir, How is it possible for Words to give stronger Proof, that God is mere Love, that he has no Will toward fallen Man but to bless him with Works of Love, and this as certainly, when he turns the Air into a Pestilence, as when he makes the same Air rain down Manna upon the Earth, since neither the one nor the other are done, but as Time, and Place, and Occasion, render them the fittest Means to make Man return and adhere to God, that is, to come out of all the Evil and Misery of his fallen State? What can infinite Love do more, or what can it do to give greater Proof, that all that it does proceeds from Love?

But as a practical matter what do we do with these truths? The people are not yet ripe for Revolution, and if the history of the American Revolution and of the United States is any indication mere regime change does not necessarily lead to an increase in liberty or justice. We can hope for and/or fear the outright collapse of the State, but there’s little we can do to either bring about or prevent such a cataclysm, and if it were to happen there’s a very good chance a new band of robbers as bad as the ones in power now would arise to form a new State. No, as Thoreau wrote, only “when men are prepared for it” will they have the kind of “government . . . which governs not at all,” and men are not now prepared for it and probably won’t be for some time.

So again, what do we do with these truths? It is something simply to communicate them to others, since they are not often heard, and thereby do our part to hasten the day when men will be “prepared.” Doing so is not without risk in these United States, and I for one have to be concerned that just by expressing these truths publicly I place my license to practice law in jeopardy. (Fortunately, while I’ll defend on principle my right to practice law if it comes to that, I’m largely indifferent to the prospect of losing my law license, and part of me feels like the powers that be would be doing me a favor by disbarring me.)

Beyond that, I can commend as practitioners and exemplars of practical and constructive anarchism people like David Gross and J. Tony Serra.

But most importantly, we who love liberty can’t allow our lives to be defined and consumed by our opposition to the State. Our lives are greater than that. I’m reminded that life is both fleeting and “charged with the grandeur of God.” The State, like Sin itself, has been poisoning the world long before I got here, and more than likely will go on poisoning it long after I’m gone. Yesterday I happened to be reading an “autobiographical sketch” written by my favorite political philosopher, Albert Jay Nock, shortly before his death in 1945, and noted these words in the penultimate paragraph:

My only failure in emotional self-control which so far has seemed unconquerable is brought about by my hearing a certain order of music or by reading prose or verse that is composed in the grand style. Not even as a child have I ever shed tears for grief or pain, but a suite of Bach or certain quartettes of Haydn will put them beyond my control. So also will choruses of Aeschylus and Sophocles, as passages from English prose writers such as Bishop Butler, William Law, the Cambridge Platonists.

Nock’s reference to William Law in particular reminded me that Law was featured prominently in Aldous Huxley’s The Perennial Philosophy, a book which impressed me greatly when I read it a few years ago. Huxley wrote there of Law:

Granted that the ground of the individual soul is akin to, or identical with, the divine Ground of all existence, and granted that this divine Ground is an ineffable Godhead that manifests itself as personal God or even as the incarnate Logos, what is the ultimate nature of good and evil, and what the true purpose and last end of human life?

The answers to these questions will be given to a great extent in the words of that most surprising product of the English eighteenth century, William Law. (How very odd our educational system is! Students of English literature are forced to read the graceful journalism of Steele and Addison, are expected to know all about the minor novels of Defoe and the tiny elegances of Matthew Prior. But they can pass all their examinations summa cum laude without having so much as looked into the writings of a man who was not only a master of English prose, but also one of the most interesting thinkers of his period and one of the most endearingly saintly figures in the whole history of Anglicanism.) Our current neglect of Law is yet another of the many indications that twentieth-century educators have ceased to be concerned with questions of ultimate truth or meaning and (apart from mere vocational training) are interested solely in the dissemination of a rootless and irrelevant culture, and the fostering of the solemn foolery of scholarship for scholarship’s sake.

Huxley noted in his Bibliography of Recommended Books that “many of Law’s finest works, such as The Spirit of Love and The Spirit of Prayer, have not been reprinted in recent years and are hard to come by.” Thanks to the power of the internet, that is no longer the case:

The Spirit of Prayer

The Spirit of Love

PART I. My final comment responding to another commenter in a thread on an Althouse post quoting Glenn Greenwald’s reaction to Althouse’s distortion of something Greenwald said about the Drug War:

John Kindley said…

Scott M said … “Does that mean you think universal health care is a left-wing or a right-wing cause?”It’s a right-wing cause. As Greenwald recently wrote (on July 7th): “Congressional Democrats began the health care debate by categorically vowing — in writing, by the dozens — never to support any health care bill that did not contain a public option (on the ground that it would be little more than a boon to — an entrenchment of — the private health insurance industry) … (and that debate followed the same template as the deficit battle: the White House publicly pretending to advocate for a public option while leading the way in private to ensure it never happened).”

PART II. Karl Hess on the Left / Right spectrum:

The overall characteristic of a right-wing regime, no matter the details of difference between this one and that one, is that it reflects the concentration of power in the fewest practical hands.

Power, concentrated in few hands, is the dominant historic characteristic of what most people, in most times, have considered the political and economic right wing.

The far left, as far as you can get away from the right, would logically represent the opposite tendency and, in fact, has done just that throughout history. The left has been the 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.

PART III. Norm Pattis, reviewing a novel, The Oregon Experiment, about a “not-so-young college professor with a professional interest in anarchism [who] puts his theory into practice in Oregon”:

My heart belongs with anarchists everywhere. I can’t quite shake the sense that government is a hoax, especially now, when I see right and left posture about the debt ceiling. While these fools bob and weave and avoid any pragmatic sense of compromise, the rest of us sit helplessly by, watching, paying taxes and, at least for the believers among us, praying that the it all doesn’t come crashing down around our ears. Some part of me says bring the crash on. I’ve an active apocalyptic gene.

But I am also late-middle-aged, a man with mortgages, children now out of college, employees, a vast network of commitments in a social web that seems forever out of control, but just serviceable enough to provide an anchor. Like the politicians I abhor, I have become vested in a world that doesn’t work. I behold anarchy with something like a pleasing sense of horror: I want to see what happens when the walls come tumbling down; I just don’t want one of those walls to fall on me or my family.

PART IV. Albert Jay Nock’s essay “A Little Conserva-tive,” published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1936

PART V. Kevin Carson at the Center for a Stateless Society on “counter-economics”:

The late Samuel Edward Konkin III (SEK3), in the New Libertarian Manifesto, coined the term “counter-economics” to describe the building of an economy outside the corporate-state nexus, and operating below its radar.   The counter-economy would evade both state regulations and state taxation, starve the state of the revenues it needed to operate, and eventually supplant the corporate-state economy.

Unfortunately, SEK3 took too narrow a view of the counter-economy:  rather than viewing illegality as a means to an end, he viewed it as an end in itself, and as the defining characteric of counter-economics.  That approach is unsatisfactory, since it means we define our efforts in terms of the state rather than in terms of our own self-derived goals.

Indeed, the state’s own statism is a means to an end, and defined largely in relation to our own self-determined goals:  to prevent us from supporting ourselves in comfort, independently of the corporate-state nexus and wage employment, and from receiving the full product of our labor.

If counter-economics is the means, we should also remember that the means is the end in progress.  Evading the state is not an end in itself; it is, rather, a means of accomplishing what we would want to accomplish for its own sake, even if the state never existed.  Counter-economics is the building of the kind of society and economy we want right now.  And if we define it that way, it dovetails nicely with many similar concepts prevalent on the libertarian, decentralist Left:  counter-institutions, dual power, and (that wonderful Wobbly slogan) “building the foundation of the new society within the shell of the old.”