Life, Love, and Liberty

Via Brendan O’Neil.

When NATO – with Clinton and Blair at the helm – bombed the headquarters of RTS (Serbian state television and radio) in central Belgrade on April 23, 1999, it was no joke. It was the real thing. In the middle of the night – at 2:20 a.m. – cruise missiles rained down on RTS headquarters, destroying the entrance and leaving at least one studio in ruins. Over 120 people were working in the building at the time; at least 16 were killed and another 16 were injured – all of them civilians, most of them technicians and support staff. The BBC’s John Simpson described seeing “the body of a make-up artist … lying in a dressing room.”

And the call for impeachment was over lying about a sex act? Guess mass murder just isn’t a “serious” enough offense.

Hat tip to Arthur Silber.

“A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government”
-Edward Abbey

Hat tip to Brad Spangler for tuning me into this Edward Abbey quote. In reflecting on the meaning of Independence Day from British colonialism, one shouldn’t forget that the battle for freedom from the Federal regime continues. Anarchists should reclaim the mantle of patriotism from those who idenify it with glorification of the nation-state and being lockstep behind government policies.

Looking through the blogosphere today, I’ve run across some choice July 4th posts by fellow rabble rousers.

-Kevin Carson chimes in with an excellent smackdown to those who credit the war machine for the existence of our freedoms. He provides a great list of genuinely patriotic quotes from classic hell raisers like Smedley Butler and Voltairine de Cleyre.

-Jake Freeman gives a nice run down on good reading with encouragement to be counter-economic and find some illegal fireworks.

Don’t forget to consider buying a black flag or a Gadsden one.

“The Market is the sum of all voluntary human action. [4] If one acts non-coercively, one is part of the Market.”
-Samuel Edward Konkin

“The State is a group of people who have managed to acquire a virtual monopoly of the use of violence throughout a given territorial area. In particular, it has acquired a monopoly of aggressive violence, for States generally recognize the right of individuals to use violence (though not against States, of course) in self-defense”
-Murray Rothbard

The world is full of risks and this is never going to change. Given the inability to change this, favoring one politico-economic system over the other can’t be based on notions of completely eradicating risk. The presence of or lack of state involvement will not produce utopia. A question remains, knowing that perfection isn’t possible, should the state or market be favored? As an Individualist Anarchist, I favor opting for the choice that grants the widest amount of freedom possible to individuals. Not only do I have a moral opposition to state coercion but varying individual context makes choosing the market far more practical. To flesh out this claim, I’ll look at some examples where a choice between market and state can be made.

Drug regulation, via requirement of written permission from a doctor, is an obvious example. Here, the practicality of favoring the market is readily apparent. Say, someone who is terminally ill and in severe pain could use some morphine. Why should they or someone acting on their behalf have to track down a doctor or hospital and thus have their suffering prolonged any longer than necessary. Some would say that this system is in place to protect people from themselves and abusing drugs but a terminally ill person is more likely to care about relieving pain than developing an addiction. This same logic applies to the Federal Drug Administration which has not been full proof in protecting people from unsafe drugs. Delay of a drug to market, could have fatal consequences for those whose lives might be saved. One such example is the AIDS medicine dextran sulfate being kept off the shelves when patients might have decided the benefits outweighed the risks in their particular situation.