I am swearing off all media today because I cannot stand this endless attention to 9/11 and the persistent glorification of police and fire and EMT, and whatever other state-employed professionals are deemed to be heroes because they represent the state as our rescuer, benefactor, and savior.

First, I absolutely dislike the term “first responder” because it is a term of veneration with no basis other than these folks are employed by the state in hallowed roles. My friend, who is a retired police officer, mentioned he had been out on some police and fire discussion boards making the unpopular argument that police officers, firemen, and all other so-called first responders, are not heroes. We were in agreement that they are not heroes just because they do their job, whatever that job entails. They are not heroes because they may have some element of danger in their work – just like an accountant who balances the book is not a hero, and a lumberjack who drops a tree is not a hero. Yet each time a first responder dies, the local – and sometimes national – media reminds us over and over of the passing individual’s greatness and service to his country. Are there not a lot of great accountants and lumberjacks who pass on as well?

My deceased father, a career firefighter, also despised the fixation with propping up police and fire personnel as the demigods of public security and welfare. He disliked the media exaltation and he refused to attend a mass funeral of one of his own with lines of fire trucks and police cars, with lights ablaze, blocking and parading down the streets to broadcast that a hero has passed. He chose to quietly visit the funeral parlor instead.

Mark Draughn:

First of all, remember that the number of Americans who died on 9/11 is much larger than the three thousand people who died in the World Trade Center, in the Pentagon, and on the hijacked airplanes. I don’t have an exact figure, but the true death toll for September 11, 2001, is much closer to ten thousand people.

That’s not some conspiracy theory, it’s mortality statistics. There are about 300 million people in the United States, and a small percentage of them die every day. If 9/11 was otherwise a typical day, it means that in addition to the 3000 deaths from terrorism, another 7000 Americans passed away for other reasons.

I can’t get it out of my head that the families of some of those people have got to feel a bit…cheated, maybe? Imagine, for example, the wife of some liquor store clerk who was shot to death in a robbery on the night of September 10th, 2001. She wakes up the next morning for one of the worst days of her life, only to discover that nobody seems to care.

I don’t want to be all holier-than-thou about this, but just this once, when we think of the people who died on 9/11, let’s try to think of all the people who died on 9/11.

David Gross:

Ten years ago, Americans got hit good and hard with the sort of death and destruction they so enjoy being on the other end of, and the United States became as noisy and menacing as a country-sized dropped beehive.

Some of the seeds of my future war tax resistance were planted then, in my disgust with the bloodthirsty, know-nothing jingoism and my intuitions about what it would lead to.

. . .

I also tried to imagine how a saner, wiser, more courageous world might have responded:

. . .

CONGRESS PASSES RESOLUTION CONDEMNING BOMBINGS OF HIROSHIMA, NAGASAKI

Washington (AP) — Congress today passed a resolution apologizing for the atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.

“It is the understanding of this Congress,” the resolution read, “that there is no justification for the wholesale murder of civilians — not to discourage an imperialist enemy, no matter how aggressive or irrational — not to prevent the loss of life of soldiers on the battlefield — not even to win a war that might be otherwise lost.

“To slaughter thousands of innocents in order to horrify a nation into surrender can never be a victory for Good. We recognize this now as we have not recognized this before.

“As we prepare for battle against the evil of terrorism, we must as part of this preparation purify our hearts, atone for our injustices, and be able to go forward with confidence that we are in the right. As our chaplain said, ‘we ask not that God be with us, but that we be always with God.’

“We do solemnly and gravely apologize for the great evil this country committed when we murdered and maimed hundreds of thousands of people in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We condemn the bombing of civilian areas to terrorize a populace or a nation.”

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

So says Steve Nolt, professor of Mennonite history at Goshen College, as quoted in an Elkhart Truth article about the college’s reversal last week of its decision last March to begin playing an instrumental version of the Star Spangled Banner before sporting events. Before that, the college didn’t play the national anthem at all, and it’s now resuming that policy. (However, although the college has now stopped playing the “Star Spangled Banner,” it apparently still flies the Star Spangled Banner.)

The Mennonites, along with the Church of the Brethren and the Quakers, are one of the three historic “peace churches”:

The peace churches agree that Jesus advocated nonviolence. Whether physical force can ever be justified, either in defending oneself or others, remains controversial. Many believers adhere strictly to a moral attitude of nonresistance in the face of violence. But these churches generally do concur that violence on behalf of nations and their governments is contrary to Christian morality.

I note that according to the Gospels Jesus chased the money-changers from the temple with a whip. I’m convinced that the use of physical force against another human being is subhuman, but that the use of such force is obviously sometimes necessary and justified. Physical force (which includes, obviously, imprisonment) should only be used as a last resort. There should be a very strong presumption against its use, whether by individuals or by groups of individuals or by self-styled “governments.” (A father whose daughter has been raped probably shouldn’t shoot and kill the rapist, but if he does, we probably shouldn’t put him in prison for doing so.)

But the peculiar historic “pacifism” of the Quakers, for example, which forbade Quakers to take up “carnal weapons” themselves but approved of the “magistrate” doing so, is hopelessly lacking in integrity, as illustrated by this anecdote from Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography:

Mr. Logan . . . told me the following anecdote of his old master, William Penn, respecting defense. He came over from England, when a young man, with that proprietary, and as his secretary. It was war-time, and their ship was chas’d by an armed vessel, suppos’ed to be an enemy. Their captain prepar’d for defense; but told William Penn, and his company of Quakers, that he did not expect their assistance, and they might retire into the cabin, which they did, except James Logan, who chose to stay upon deck, and was quarter’d to a gun. The suppos’d enemy prov’d a friend, so there was no fighting; but when the secretary went down to communicate the intelligence, William Penn rebuk’d him severely for staying upon deck, and undertaking to assist in defending the vessel, contrary to the principles of Friends, especially as it had not been required by the captain. This reproof, being before all the company, piqu’d the secretary, who anser’d, “I being thy servant, why did thee not order me to come down? But thee was willing enough that I should stay and help to fight the ship when thee thought there was danger.”

David Gross, a tax resister, highlights another related incoherence to which Quakers and other religious “pacifists” are sadly prone:

It still perplexes me when I talk to people from the substantial pacifist contingent in the war tax resistance movement and find that for many of them, while they’re not convinced violence or the threat of violence would be an appropriate response to the aggression of, say, a Nazi Germany, or even to an armed intruder trying to break into your home — the government using violence to force people to contribute to education, the arts, scientific research, and other such nice things is peachy keen.  Would they go door-to-door taking donations for the National Endowment for the Arts at gunpoint, I wonder?

Fortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court, of all people, has grasped a necessary distinction that eludes many pacifists:

Willingness to use force in self-defense, in defense of home and family, or in defense against immediate acts of aggressive violence toward other persons in the community, has not been regarded as inconsistent with a claim of conscientious objection to war as such.

That is, it’s not violence per se which is everywhere and always intrinsically evil. It’s the State.

The first Leftists were a group of newly elected representatives to the National Constituent Assembly at the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789. They were labeled “Leftists” merely because they happened to sit on the left side in the French Assembly.

The legislators who sat on the right side were referred to as the Party of the Right, or Rightists. The Rightists or “reactionaries” stood for a highly centralized national government, special laws and privileges for unions and various other groups and classes, government economic monopolies in various necessities of life, and a continuation of government controls over prices, production, and distribution.

. . .

The majority of the original Party of the Left had been opposed to concentrated power regardless of who exercised it. But the violent revolutionists in their midst, led by Robespierre, Danton, and Marat, were opposed to concentrated power only so long as someone else exercised it. Robespierre, who represented himself as spokesman for the people, first said that the division of the powers of government was a good thing when it diminished the authority of the king. But when Robespierre himself became the leader, he claimed that the division of the powers of government would be a bad thing now that the power belonged “to the people.”

. . .

Most of the original Leftists protested. So they too were soon repudiated in the general terror that was called liberty. But since the name Leftist had become identified with the struggle of the individual against the tyranny of government, the new tyrants continued to use that good name for their own purposes. This was a complete perversion of its former meaning.

I revere Leo Tolstoy as a great and exemplary man not only for his principled anarchism and non-dogmatic Christianity, but also for his enthusiastic endorsement later in life of the “Single Tax” advocated by Henry George, as described by Tolstoy’s personal friend and secretary Victor Lebrun:

In giving his extreme and sympathetic attention to other thinkers and writers, the great Tolstoy differed essentially from his colleagues — the geniuses of all countries and all centuries. But nothing shows the complete honesty and surprising liberty of his spirit more than his attitude towards Henry George.

It was at the beginning of 1885 that he happened to lay his hands on the books of the great American sociologist. By then the moral and social doctrine of the thinker had been solidly and definitely established. Man’s supreme and unique duty was to perfect himself morally and not to co-operate with the wrong. Thus the social problem would be automatically solved when the majority has understood the true meaning of pure Christianity and when it has learned to abstain from all crimes which are frequently and commonly committed. All reasoning about the precise nature of the citizens’ rights, about laws, about the organisation of governmental compulsion for their protection is anathema to the great thinker.

But … hardly had Tolstoy had a glance at “Social Problems” and “Progress and Poverty” and he was completely captivated by George’s outstanding exposition.

. . .

And the thinker does not hesitate any longer. From this encounter on he resolutely and enthusiastically takes George’s side, and to his last breath for a quarter of a century, he makes every effort without relaxation to make his discovery known.

Georgetown professor John Hasnas wrote in The Obviousness of Anarchy a couple things I’ve tried to say on this blog:

Anarchy refers to a society without a central political authority. But it is also
used to refer to disorder or chaos. This constitutes a textbook example of Orwellian
newspeak in which assigning the same name to two different concepts effectively
narrows the range of thought. For if lack of government is identified with the lack of
order, no one will ask whether lack of government actually results in a lack of order.
And this uninquisitive mental attitude is absolutely essential to the case for the state.
For if people were ever to seriously question whether government is really productive
of order, popular support for government would almost instantly collapse.

. . .

No one believes that we can transition from a world of states to
anarchy instantaneously. No reasonable anarchist advocates the total dissolution of
government tomorrow. Once we turn our attention to the question of how to move
incrementally from government to anarchy, it becomes apparent that national defense
would be one of the last governmental functions to be de-politicised. If my argument
for anarchy is flawed and anarchy is not a viable method of social organisation, this
will undoubtedly be revealed long before doing away with national defense becomes
an issue. On the other hand, to the extent that the gradual transition from government
to anarchy is successful, the need for national defense continually lessens.

David Gross at The Picket Line links to a good meditation on the dangers of lifestyle purity perfectionism by Claire Wolfe, who writes:

Kitty Antonik Wakfer whacks all of us who say we support WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning, but who haven’t cancelled our Amazon and PayPal accounts or cut up our MasterCards and Visas.

. . .

Now, I don’t know Kitty Antonik Wakfer. She may be a terrific human being. I hope she is. Her heart’s in the right place.

But I would ask all the “more pure than thou” freedomistas of the world: Have you walked a few years in my shoes?

. . .

For 15 years, I increasingly lived according to my principles. I did those hard things. Went without numbers and ID. Became an exile in my own land. Got by with a little help from my friends (and sometimes a lot of help from them). And every one of those friends was less “pure” than I; but they should kick my ass if I ever have enough nerve to damn them for their lack of purity.

. . .

I no longer live like that. Got tired. Went broke. Became weary of being an outcast — weary of knowing I’d have to fight through every little tiny thing that others take for granted. I’m older and ready for a little calm and comfort. I don’t regret one minute of trying to live free. I’m glad I did it. But it didn’t make the world freer. And for me, that time is done.

. . .

Thing is, even in my most hardcore days, I wasn’t as “pure” as some folks. Go to the Mental Militia forums and look up the postings of suijurisfreeman if you really want to see hardcore. And I defy anybody to find me one, single freedomista on this earth who never violates a principle — never pays a sales tax for a purchase, lives on property which is neither taxed nor subsidized, totally ignores the existence of the state and all its works, drives boldly down the highway sans license and registration and doesn’t bother to stop when the red light flashes in the rear window because to stop would be to obey the unjust state. Show me the person who goes through life without a single compromise of principle. Show me.

. . .

And unless you are that perfectly pure person whose life is the epitome of principle every moment of every day, then don’t go around condemning others for failing to take a step that you consider proper and necessary — but that also doesn’t cause you any huge inconvenience.

As I mentioned yesterday, a while back I tried to flesh out a variety of political philosophy that I whimsically dubbed “topianism.”

I meant the name to highlight the distinction between it and utopian political philosophies (meaning, most all of the rest of them, including the mainstream ones that pass for conventional wisdom) — that is to say that it’s not aiming
at organizing society in some ideal way, but in understanding and navigating society as it is in the here-and-now (not in the outopos where it will never be, or the eutopos where we might ideally project it to be, but in this topos right here where we’re standing). I’m not crazy about the name “topianism,” but I need some sort of tag to attach to the idea while I look for a better one.

Topianism is almost more of an ethical code than a political philosophy, except that it has a component with profound political consequences: its claim that there is no second standard (or set of standards) by which to judge acts in the political sphere — instead, a single standard applies to everyone. . . .

Topianism bears a lot of resemblance to existentialism because of its emphasis on personal responsibility and on avoiding the temptation to deflect or deny this responsibility.

When you talk about responsibility, you sometimes end up getting into the tangle over free will. . . .

Be all that as it may, most of us feel that we inhabit a world in which we choose some actions and some things just happen to us and in which there is a big difference between the two. This is crucial to our sense of being living
participants in existence and not just spectators along for the ride.

The existentialist tradition did a lot of work identifying some of the ways we conveniently pretend to be spectators instead of participants from time to time in order to try to cheat our way out of confronting our need to decide
and our responsibility for the results of our decisionmaking.

Topianism emphasizes how this works (or rather doesn’t work) in the political sphere. It insists that you cannot displace an individual human decision onto an institution, a hierarchical order, a rule, or anything of the sort. In other words, you cannot say “I did it because it was the law,” or “I did it because it was my job,” or “I did it because it was an order,” or “I did it because it got more votes than the alternative” as a way of trying to mean “the choice I made to do it wasn’t really my choice.”

In its most uncompromising form, topianism won’t even let you foist your decisions off on rules of thumb, ethical principles, or topianism itself. You can refer to such things in the course of explaining your decisionmaking, but you can’t try to make such things bear any of the weight of your actual decisionmaking or shoulder any of the responsibility for your actions.

It is an anarchist philosophy, but not because it preaches that The State should be abolished, but because it asserts that The State, as an independent moral agent capable of making decisions and shouldering responsibility, does not exist. The attitude of a topian to The State is not like the attitude of an assassin to the Emperor but like the attitude of an athiest to God.

Read the whole thing. See also this letter by Leo Tolstoy, reproduced by David Gross, expressing a similar understanding.