“Mommy, why is Daddy so angry… and insane?” (The Internal Breakdown of the Republican Party in 2009)

There are many archetypes for the father figure. The most disturbing one is probably the domineering task master whose “love” comes at a cost that can never be paid. That cost is absolute deference, obedience, compliance and respect and, to him, deference, obedience and compliance are the proof of proper respect. He finds humor in ‘jokes’ which categorize and belittle others because they support his own view of his natural superiority over “lesser” (i.e. – different) people. This archetype believes that his children also begin their life owing him a debt that can never be paid back, life itself. As such, his children are his property, chattel that he has paid for. He sees himself as all-knowing, all-powerful and always right. He is focused on rules and control. He will not tolerate backtalk or even being questioned. He not only wants to instill fear in his children, he wants them to fear that, even if they somehow do something that he sees as wrong without his knowing about it, they will still face retribution and punishment for eternity from a vengeful God; the same God who gives the father-figure his authority by giving him children. This father-figure believes that his right to have power over others is given to him directly by God; that his power and authority cannot be questioned or limited by anyone, and that few in the world are his equals. His God has also given him the ultimate power, the power to banish to the wilderness those who violate his given order. What he gives, he can (and will) take.

This archetype is what the Republican Party has become.

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Like most political observers, I have watched with fascination the Republican Party’s rapid descent into madness throughout the course of the year. In fact, that breakdown has been so spectacular that even people who DON’T widely follow politics or news are aware of it, whether they recognize it or not. While I have heard much discussion of what they are doing, I have not, however, heard anyone pinpoint a single core cause of that breakdown. We have plenty of “what” being talked about but little to none of “why”. As I have spoken of before, people are focused on the “symptoms” of a disease without identifying the “disease” itself. Two recent incidences with my own brother gave me a clue about what that “disease” actually is. The core of the Republican Party is simply an authoritarian “father” who is mad that their “dependents” (the American People) aren’t respecting or listening to them anymore. They are angry because they have no control over their “children” and authoritarians THRIVE on being in control.

The Authoritarian Personality was a 1950 book written by UC-Berkeley psychologists Theodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswick, Daniel Levinson,, and Nevitt Sanford. In their book, they first described the “authoritarian personality” theory of personality. Their research lead them to the conclusion that this personality is developed by psychodynamic, childhood experiences which make them predisposed to follow the dictates of a strong leader and traditional, conventional values. They identified nine traits, which they hypothesized were clustered together as a result of those experiences, which identified this personality type:

     • Anti-intraception;
     • Authoritarian Aggression;
     • Authoritarian Submission;
     • Conventionalism;
     • Destructiveness and Cynicism;
     • Exaggerated Concerns over Sexuality;
     • Power and “Toughness”;
     • Projectivity; and
     • Stereotyping and Superstition.

In 1981, Canadian psychologist, Bob Altemeyer, gave us a refinement of the authoritarian personality theory, which he introduced as the concept of “right-wing authoritarianism”. Altemeyer found that only three of those nine traits correlated together:

     • Authoritarian Aggression (a general aggressiveness directed against “deviants”, outgroups, and other people that are perceived to be targets according to established authorities.)

     • Authoritarian Submission (a high degree of submissiveness to the authorities who are perceived to be established and legitimate in the society in which one lives.); and
     • Conventionalism (a high degree of adherence to the traditions and social norms that are perceived to be endorsed by society and its established authorities, and a belief that others in one’s society should also be required to adhere to these norms.)

The “right-wing” in right-wing authoritarianism does not necessarily refer to someone’s politics, but rather to their psychological preferences and personality. It means that the person tends to follow the established conventions and authorities in society. In theory, the authoritarian personality could have either conservative or liberal political views.

In his 1996 paper, The Authoritarian Specter, Altemeyer reported that his research indicated that right-wing authoritarians tend to exhibit cognitive errors and symptoms of faulty reasoning. Specifically, they are more likely to make incorrect inferences from evidence and to hold contradictory ideas that are the result of compartmentalized thinking. They are also more likely to uncritically accept insufficient evidence that supports their beliefs, and they are less likely to acknowledge their own limitations. The RWA-scale reliably correlates with political party affiliation, reactions to Watergate, pro-capitalist beliefs, religious orthodoxy, and acceptance of covert governmental activities such as illegal wiretaps. Altemeyer found that those who scored highly on the RWA-scale are likely to exhibit several common traits. These personalities tend to:

     • Be Highly Nationalistic;
     • Have Conservative Economic Philosophies;
     • Not value Social Equality;
     • Oppose Abortion;
     • Oppose Gun Control; and
     • Support Capital Punishment.

In role-playing situations, Altemeyer found that authoritarians tend to seek dominance over others by being competitive and destructive instead of cooperative. In his study, sixty-eight authoritarians played a three-hour simulation of the Earth’s future entitled the “Global Change Game”. While a comparison game played by individuals with low RWA scores resulted in world peace and widespread international cooperation, the simulation by authoritarians became highly militarized and eventually entered the stage of nuclear war. By the end of the high RWA game, the entire population of the earth was declared dead.

Research by D. J. Narby, B. L. Cutler & G. Moran (1993) found that authoritarians are generally more favorable to punishment and control than personal freedom and diversity. For example, they are more willing to support the suspension or abolishment of constitutional guarantees of liberty such as the Bill of Rights… at least where those guarantees protect others who they, themselves, have judged to be inferior. They are also more likely to advocate strict, punitive sentences for criminals. Researches by J. Duckitt & B. Farre (1994) and by M.B. Goodman & B. Moradi (2008) found that people with high RWA scores report that they obtain personal satisfaction from punishing those who they perceive as criminals, and that they tend to be ethnocentric and prejudiced against racial and ethnic minorities, and homosexuals.

The modern Republican Party has been dominated by individuals who are not just authoritarian personalities; they are right-wing authoritarian personalities. Since the period following the War Between the States, they have moved steadily away from being a populist party to being a party focused on being able to exert their will on others, even while in the minority. Money, power and political manipulations made them a corrupt party of “elites” who viewed themselves as being superior to those they “governed”. They used demogoguery as a strategy to gain political power by appealing to the public’s prejudices, emotions, fears, and expectations. They mastered the use of impassioned rhetoric, propaganda and abductive reasoning, often through the use of nationalistic, populist, moralist and / or religious themes.

The current schizophrenic behavior of the Republican Party began, in my opinion, with the almost worshipful attitude of the conservative and Christian far-right to their mythology of Ronald Reagan. They see him as their Moses, who was leading them to their conservative “Promised Land”. In 1994, this Promised Land seemed to be within sight with their takeover of both Houses of Congress. Suddenly, the Republican Party was filled with average, everyday people who not only viewed themselves as being elite, but also as being responsible for “fixing” what they saw as the broken soul of America. The big problem is that, by definition, average, everyday people cannot BE elite. This was the political equivalent of the common people of France deposing their nobility and establishing their “committees of the people” to rule instead. As happened in France, once they were in power, they also eventually turned on those among themselves who they did not see as supporting the orthodoxy or dogma of their revolution. Their equivalence was creating the label “Republican In Name Only”, or RINO. With that label they would work to purge their own ranks of those who were not “pure enough” in their belief in the “correct” orthodoxy, essentually removing the very real existence and accomplishments of the historical moderate and liberal wings of their party from their mythology.

Regardless of what the Republicans “promised” in their infamous Contract With America, once they gained the power and positions they believed were ordained for them, they moved to solidify their control over our government by making the Party (rather than the individual elected members) the dominant feature of American Government. They changed rules for determining committee chairs from being based on seniority to being based on how well members followed the dictates of the party. They collectivised their party to minimize the power of individual members and maximize the power of the party itself. Again, the similarities (in action, if not degree) to the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror are remarkable. At this point, they became “Daddy”, saying to America “Do what I tell you to do or I will punish you.”

Following in the footsteps of their mythology’s greatest human hero, Ronald Reagan (under whose administration, for example, federal funds and tax dollars were withheld from states which would not comply with federal demands for conformance on issues like drinking, drugs, speed limits, etc. – essentially blackmailing the states), the Republican controlled Congress with a view to its own dominance, power, and control over the “misguided” states and the people who did not want to do what “Daddy” told or expected them to do. They also envisioned an America under their rule in perpetuity (Karl Roves infamous “permanent majority”). Regardless of their often espoused support of states’ rights (an idea which is not found in The Constitution, contrary to the beliefs of many), they only want the states to be independent of their federal government when the states are ruling as the Party wants them to. In all other cases, they believe that their obligation as the “rulers” of our federal government is to impose THEIR will upon the states when the states aren’t “competent enough” to agree with them.

Even with the 1995 Republican majorities in both Houses of Congress, their first since 1955, they were still “impeded” in their movement towards creating the America they envisioned by having a moderate Democrat, Bill Clinton, as President. Thus, much of their effort was to limit, if not remove altogether, political resistance against their power, including their impeachment of Clinton. In 2000, however, all of their wet dreams o be on the verge of coming true with elevation of George W. Bush to the Presidency. Not only did they get a majority in the House, once seated, on January 20, 2001, Dick Cheney, as President of the Senate, turned an evenly split Senate into one with a majority controlled by the Republican members. During this period, there was, of course, no talk or consideration of working with the members from the Democratic Party and their ideal of bipartisanship was the Democratic members doing what their Republican masters wanted them to do. This, of course, went so well that Republican Senator Jeffords (Vermont), holding the Senate seat that had been continuously held by Republicans for the longest period in American history (144 years), quit the party and became an Independent who caucused with the Democrats. This was the first time we, as a nation, got to see how the modern Republican Party would react to being challenged in its holding political dominance and absolute power. How many of us remember THAT little brouhaha?

Starting in 2003, the Republican Party did have complete control of the Presidency and both Houses of Congress… and they had their eye on having the opportunity to also stack the Supreme Court with those who shared their vision of America. I won’t rehash what those of us who opposed Bush and the far-right conservatives believe about how he governed and what was done to damage The Constitution under their period of dominance. Suffice it to say that we welcomed the slight shift in power which gave the Democrats narrow control of both Houses of Congress a mere four years later. It was at this time that “Daddy” really started to go seriously insane. What happened in 2008, of course, drove “Daddy” completely over the edge of reason.

What I see now in the Republican Party is the equivalent of Cole Oyl, Olive Oyl’s father in the Popeye cartoons and movie, running around telling everyone “You owe me an apology!” The Republican Party has become politically impotent and its impotence has caused rage among the far-right wing of the Party. They are trying to find something, ANYTHING to latch onto to demonstrate to others that they aren’t impotent. Their quest, however, keeps getting more and more trivial, pedantic and ridiculous with each passing week. They are so blinded by their impotent rage that they are once again attacking those among their own ranks who question the power that they believe is their divine right by not ascribing to the “proper” orthodoxy, dogma and “tenets of faith” as the “true believers”. Like any angry, old authoritarian confronted with their impotence, they are searching for a political orgasm.

Yes, that is what I believe it comes down to… they can’t get themselves off politically. That is, in my opinion, the only explanation for their increasingly erratic and dangerous actions… impotent rage. They have a collective need to not only feel that they are vibrant and virile but also that they can reproduce. I believe that all sociological creations of Man (governments, clubs, businesses, etc.) can be viewed and understood by seeing them as living organisms. They all have the same needs and desires of a living organism and, as a living organism, the far-right Republicans see themselves being replaced by other organisms that do not come from their own seed; they suddenly see themselves as mortal and approaching an ignoble end. Unfortunately, there is no little blue pill that they can take to compensate for their electile dysfunction.

Like a once vibrant and dominant man reduced to wearing diapers and drooling; like an alpha-male pack animal who has lost his teeth, those members of the Republican party who are making ever greater fools of themselves are filled with rage against those who robbed them of what they see as their rightful place in American life. In their rage to reclaim their “rightful” place in society they will use any and every means at their disposal to destroy what they can’t have for themselves. If they can’t be in control of our country then they will reduce it to ashes so that there won’t be a country for anyone else to be in control off. It is an attitude that the world has seen before. That is the final lesson that “Daddy” has to teach his errant and ungrateful children… that it is easier to destroy a nation than it is to build one.

Vive’ la Revolution.

Rhys M. Blavier
Romayor, Texas

“Truth, Justice and Honor… but, above all, Honor”

© Copyright 2009 by Rhys M. Blavier
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Thank you for reading this article. Please read my other articles and let me know what you think. I am writing them not to preach or to hear myself think but to try to create dialogs, debates and discussions on the nature of our government and how we can build upon and improve it based on what we have seen and learned over the course of the 225 years of The American Experiment.

This is a link to Bob Altemeyer’s book ‘The Authoritarians’ which you can read on-line:
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

How War Does Speed

War is not the health of the state. At least not in the long run. I respect Randolph Bourne and his cogent observation that  “War is the health of the state”. But he is far too lenient in diagnosing war and that psychopathic institution of monopolistic coercion, which is the state. Rather war is the amphetamine of the state and speeds it along to its destruction along with the attending population.

War is a collective addiction of those who are vetted for violence and recklessness. They charge into areas laden with known lethal dangers. Amphetamine (or Amvet-a-mine?) is a capsule description of this addictive drug. It comes in many forms, as does war. It has been described to me by an addict as giving initially a rush of power, a feeling of purpose that drives eventually to conflict. One goes into the most difficult of projects with gusto only to be distracted later into another one. As its use continues headlong into constant use it brings on paranoia, exhaustion, anger and lack of judgment. One forgets simply how to take care of oneself and family as nourishment, health and hygiene fall by the wayside. Initial goals are forgotten for while the drive becomes for more and more of the experience itself. It ends up in despair, delusions, discord, disease and death.

It has been prescribed and proscribed by people who are doctors. It is designed in laboratories and manufactured in factories. This was seen as a way to get more work out of a nation. They have also said it was a way to get out of a depression. It was also seen as a way to stop other drug use or just to generally wake people up.

These authorities also saw it as a way for people to become more aggressive and talkative. Every thought became concentration and power. It was hailed as a way to increase initiative, confidence and alertness. Some also used it to get in trim and decrease consumption. While it was given to adults to stimulate them it was also administered to children to keep them quiet. Many use it to keep an edge on themselves. They also want others under them to use it to validate their use.

The drug operates the same way as war. It is uniform in effects, which may be why so many of its users wear uniforms or think uniformly. So they are in an outfit, which is also a gang. The drug was widely used by many of those involved in fighting in World War II, whether they were up in the air while acting as pilots or in the tank shooting off. They became crack troops. Even those who were behind the lines with their nose close to their desk and just working the lines given them in factories were inhaling this rush to destruction. It seemed that you could get a lot more done while doing it. So nations became addicted and could not see imagine existence without it. Hitler was known to get a lot of shooting done and stealing to feed his all-consuming frenzy. It was injected through his works and became his daily life. So it became part of others as well. So there was a method of amphetamine in his madness.

Even now that methamphetamine is banned, there is a band of brothers involved in it. Motorcycle gangs, which are uniformly military in organization, appearance and predereliction for violence are the primary purveyors of speed. Some speed around the country in formations and formulate speed as well. The origin of the Hell’s Angels name comes from names of military units. These bikers wore black leather Air Force bomber jackets adorned with unit patches as well as old German military helmets when riding . . .

One of the ingredients of meth is ammonia. Ammonia is a fertilizer as well as a poison. It is released as a dead body decays and has an evil smell. It is available everywhere for everyone to use. It is also a harsh cleanser of the fabric of society.

A saying during war is “Keep your powder dry”. This is so as that this substance will not lose its explosiveness. This also applies to speed, which is powder as well as a shot. It can come in any color or packaging. It is often used as a source of amusement or display of patriotism and visual effects. However fireworks are just an amusing aspect of explosive powder. The explosive powder of power must be kept pure and packed into a tight shell and then is placed in the head that is prepared for launching. It is dangerous in its denseness and kept dry so it will ignite. It could be shot up or hurled into an opening.  There it breaks up into the energy of destruction, which ends in nothingness. The process usually repeats endlessly. It is an expensive habit to maintain. Keep alert, more than alert and the over-stimulation becomes a danger to the user. For this dry powder can kill friend and foe alike.

It is dangerous to make as well. One becomes connected to one’s product even without use. Stories abound of how manufacturers of this poison hurt and poison themselves or lose their lives and fortunes in explosions and fires. It’s been called by the godly an involvement in a satanic process. This dangerous edge may be a perverse incentive to some, like a shot of adrenalin.

It is said of dealers and manufacturers on the highest levels of this trade that they never get involved in this for personal use. It distorts good judgment and interferes with making a profit. And they do accumulate a lot of wealth and toys, more than they can ever use, in this trade of theirs.  This may be the mainline reason that they got involved in all of this dealing with death.

It is also used to obtain sex and other favors. There are issues of identity, status as well as social climbing. There is also the feeling of control as addicts put more money into your pockets. There is adventure, and the joy of conspiracy with other like-minded wealthy, people. Dealing meth, like diplomacy, which is dealing with politics, can be war with another name.

It is used by the actors who play our lives on stage and in film as well as the suites of power. It also runs as a suite of those who give a music to our souls. For the music of this experience reaches to all whether you are of the country or the urban or urbane cultures or styles. Some who use it use this to rise to the top and maintain their positions there. This helps them attract huge audiences. For all this drive does is make the heart beat faster but then irregular. This raises the blood pressure as well. So they speed the march to the attack!

But it does create culture even with its destruction.  As theater needs conflict war is a theater and conflict as well. While those in this field need initiative as well as discipline and power, inevitably through use there will arise unprovoked acts of violence. These are the first signs of misuse causing canceling of performances, productions as well as the conflict of the actor with civilized society.

Conflict is sometimes the result of irritability, which is also common with users. The tremors may arise from not being on firm ground. The effects might at first seem to give   a unity of purpose but later it gives schizophrenia as an end result of its paranoia. This is a result of over-indulgence and leads to even larger doses with even greater symptoms resulting. A constant state of tenseness leads to brittleness. It also leads to a dramatic increase in spousal and child abuse. Alcoholism and other addictions can create some of the same effects.

War is the cancer of the state and it affects those who live within its power even if they are not users. Overgrowth of the defensive cells of any organism is cancer. The body goes haywire in determining what is hostile and what is essential to it. Cancer leads to the takeover and the death of its host. So war can bring about good things as well like ending a state. But will it bring the end of the addiction in others it has infected? A different way to alter consciousness is needed.

Because after long use depression will return worse than ever. The body politic will wonder what is wrong. So paranoia and fear will ensue and then it closes up. The shit that inevitably accumulates within it will not be let out. It is more than a constipation that the body suffers, for the toxins will leach into the blood. And with that comes pain, lack of appetite and blurred vision. Communications that are very demanding will also become increasingly unclear and rambling at the same time. The old remedy for this was blood letting. This is what is happening now as the head in its fever turns to the solutions of what is considered general use of Mc CHRYSTAL METHods. We Af Ghan too far into the glass pipe-line of war.

There are scores of similar symptoms shared by both amphetamines and war in this article. In fact, every symptom of speed has a war analogy. When the similarities become so often between two different fields and so obvious that puns and wordplay abound between them then there is more than a smile of a simile at work. This phenomena I call meta-forensics.

So let us proceed in this what I describe as a meta-forensics to understand how to deal with these problems. Yes, war and amphetamines are addictive and dangerous in many ways. While I would not recommend or use either one neither would I want either one banned, as the consequence of banning would only increase the problem. We have all seen how the War on Poverty increased the poverty problem. A War on War would be just as insane like the War on Drugs.

A misunderstanding of terms, or the inability of the terms to describe, terminates understanding. A psychosis that cannot be understood in its terms becomes a metaphorosis, which is another term I have invented.  When much more of that happens it can cause such a dissonance that a metamorphosis can happen. .

We must acknowledge that the widespread use of amphetamines, especially meth, has been disastrous for poorer, rural America, like war always is.  In prison I met many of these people who used or sold “meth” (speed), which is so similar to crack or cocaine it is sometimes called “country crack”. And like crack it is defining the culture of the country people as well in music and story as well as those who write and perform it.

It also addicts the brilliant, creative and disciplined.  I’ve met in prison stockbrokers and fashion designers from New York City who used “meth” as well. I’ve never done it, sold it and always warned people against it and still do. Yet how can I completely condemn a drug that helped the great novelist and paragon of rationality, Ayn Rand, finish “The Fountainhead”? Or how can I condemn something used by Jack Kerouac, the novelist of the Beat generation, in writing On the Road”? Or how about all those college students who have used it for decades for the same reasons as Ayn or Jack, to cram knowledge and finish writings on a deadline?

The same goes for a fight. Fighting is natural for every tribe, even among boys. There is such a thing as just war. However if it becomes a continual policy among large amounts of combatants as it so often does it becomes just a war. This is one reason why we focus on individual stories in war fiction rather than the tramping of armies. Those involved in war or speed must be small in number and very aware of the dangers of what they do.  If the state gets involved in pushing it or even if it becomes a mindless fad (something that often comes together) there is incredible danger. For something banned that thing becomes an allure and quest all of its own (The Fight Club). So war in its righteous wrath must be separate from the state as the church is separate from the state.

I preach and practice non-violence. When I have a violent fantasy (which is fairly often) I try to imagine and think through what are the goal and the aftermath and then try to imagine other strategies. I also ask the same in what I am going to get out of any drug experience, in imagining creative alternatives. Only psychedelics allow those types of questions and quests. There is so much shortsightedness in this world. Especially with those who act either inside or outside the box, whether the box contains cartridges or capsules. Still there are so few who will go out of the box that I encourage people to do so.  But at the same time have an understanding or vision of what can come next.

War can have a horrible beauty and quest that has inspired much art at terrible cost. We can no longer afford it except as metaphor or as a final option. If we end up hurting others and ourselves, rather than helping then we must stop. When the process fails to work for someone the drug and war experience must end and not returned to.  It seems so true and obvious in a normal state to do so but in the intoxicated state that these bring it seems unreal and even frightening. Those involved in war and speed tend to associate and trust only those who have close ties to it. So it is imperative that those involved maintain a connection with those who are judiciously honest and understanding of the problems involved and who are outside of that experience.

I suppose that some will also make the analogy of some ideas such as religion and politics are also addictions. For the purposes of this discussion a practice that becomes such an obsession in that it becomes uniformly dangerous to practitioners that they become violent to others qualifies that as an addiction. One of the reasons that a person wants to spread a practice so that they become an intense advocate is to validate the experience for themselves and to learn more about it. It is possible that among the advocates of an idea you will have addicts and non-addicts in this definition.

There is also the possibility of a genetic predisposition and that we orient ourselves to those drives such as has been theorized as for religion. Or we may have receptor sites for speed (or is it adrenaline) or war because it increases adrenalin. These may be related to our need for war. If this is how we are wired then we should allow expression of these instincts in as safe a way as possible and even give them a sense of meaning. And when it gets out of hand and causes the user to be damaging then the fullest moral authority with the least use of violence must be used.

So let’s continue with the addiction analogy. Those involved in wars of aggression and hurting those who are not involved should be treated as an addict who commits violence and theft. Let us leave aside criminal penalties that are levied on these acts. How can you motivate the addict to stop the anti-social behavior and instill an awareness or guilt of what they are doing so that they will decide to stop?

The best accepted treatment of those in addictive behavior is a staged confrontation. Those who are friends, family and others who have been hurt and know the actor have a planned surprise meeting with the accused. They all give their individual testimony of the terrible things that the person has done. Afterward they give their verdict to the miscreant.  The sentence is: “Deal with their problem!” This is usually done through a program. The program is designed to understand their behavior and build support means so that they never indulge in the drug or behavior again. The twelve-step success begins with an admission of guilt and that they are addicts. It is as an act of recovery, which may result in a real change. The addict will use any rationale as an excuse to use the drug again. Yet long experience has concluded that a drug once abused can never be used again or the same destructive pattern re-emerges. So if they do go back to old habits they should suffer an exile, a shunning or boycott. This cycle can continue endlessly until the addict dies. Most never recover. The ones that do keep clean see themselves in a constant state of recovery, not as cured people.

The behavior of the state and its military is to ensnarl itself in everything that could be in opposition to it so as to engender self-censorship of possible critics. It also co-opts, censors, minimalizes, avoids, arrests or chases away any opposition to its self-perception as heroes. Still wars, attempts at empires and other horrid behavior have on occasion been shamed out of existence. This is how colonialism, Communism and the Vietnam War ended.

Police state functions can be dealt with the same way. In spite of propaganda from the official culture, high pay and other inducements police are often socially isolated. Who wants to party with someone who is obligated to bust you for breaking a stupid law? Partly because of this disconnect and the official requirements of violence, police and military people have high alcoholism and other drug problems, suicide rates and other abuse issues. Police and the military are war drug cultures.

Peace people are a small group of disguised therapists in a huge asylum that is run by the inmates. Some of us are in recovery ourselves. Even among the therapists we are in the minority. It is commonly accepted among the violent addicts that if something goes wrong it is OK and even a duty to relapse into the drug called war. This imprint has gone on for ages. So we must build through culture, tradition and moral code and imprint a loathing of war. The extreme efforts and accomplishments that made possible the imprint through this drug of war must be made through other means. This could be done through other drugs such as psychedelics, which help in reprinting. Other quests such as spiritual and cultural imprints help as well.

So we define the mass use of violence and amphetamines as the sign of massive evil and psychosis. We see this as the state or state of mind that accepts horror as normal or even ideal. We create communities of peace amid this structured chaos of war. We persevere and create this peace even if just to maintain our own sanity.

It is through our analysis, ideals and vision that we have a way of treatment. We must prove to our patients that they have a problem and that there are other more peaceful ways of dealing with their problems than what they are doing now. Whether they are consciously pursuing terror as a way of life or thinking that this is the only or best way out we must provide better options without the drug-like frenzy of violence. It has been described as one of the most difficult and rewarding of accomplishments for genius and commoner alike to give up an addictive drug. Giving up war will be a similar struggle. So let’s start looking at the problem this way.

Libertarianism, Vulgar Libertarianism, and Vulgar Socialism

On September 28th, 2009, Francois Tremblay, a former propertarian anarchist, wrote a blog piece to showcase what he currently sees to be the inexorable problems resulting from a defence of property rights.  In doing so, he quotes extensively from a piece written over thirty-four years ago by capitalism-advocate Walter Block.

In reading Mr. Tremblay’s post, I could not help but to think of how vulgar libertarianism facilitates vulgar socialism and vice versa.  (For those unfamiliar with the terms vulgar libertarianism and vulgar socialism, definitions will be provided below, coupled with examples and analyses.)

The Block piece from which Mr. Tremblay quotes was originally published in 1975 in The Libertarian Forum VIII, no. 9.  Dr. Block’s article, dealing specifically with certain ideological problems he found in the Women’s Liberation movement, does a fine job of inadvertently exemplifying the stigmergic problems of vulgar libertarianism, so I shall start there.  It’s not the simple fact that Block challenges currents within the Women’s Liberation movement that makes his comments of a vulgar stripe, of course, since such challenges need not challenge the validity of the movement as a whole.  Indeed, otherwise good movements should be challenged by radicals who wish to improve said movements by radicalising them.  Instead, the problem is the result of a misunderstanding of the nature and proper constraints of property.

Writes Dr. Block,

It [the pinching that takes place between a secretary and her or his boss] is not a coercive action like the pinching that takes place in the public sphere because it is part of a package deal: the secretary agrees to all aspects of the job when she agrees to accept the job and especially when she agrees to keep the job (p. 6).

My gut reaction here is to say that Dr. Block is wrong.¹

And he was wrong, that is, unless he was describing a scenario in which the employment contract specifically allocates to the boss the luxury of pinching or a scenario in which the boss and her employee have mutually agreed to have the sort of relationship where pinching is permissible.²

If this is not what Block was implying, if instead Block was implying that all workers—by sheer virtue of being employees—have de facto agreed to being pinched by their employers, then Block was wrong, and his position was actually in defiance of true property rights.  After all, the woman owns her own body, and does not cease being a self-owner simply because she chooses to seek employment from another human being (i.e., to trade on a voluntary basis the fruits of her labour for something for which she has greater subjective value, e.g., a generally-accepted medium of exchange).  If the employer pinches the employee without the employee having explicitly consented to being pinched, then the employer has usurped from the employee control over the employee’s private property, specifically her physical body, and the employee has every right to sue her employer for such usurpation.

To prevent the employee from issuing such a suit would be just as liberticidal and anti-propertarian as to prevent the employer from firing her employee at any time.

Dr. Block’s insistence here that employers have a de facto “right” to pinch their employees appears to be an illustrative example of what we call vulgar libertarianism.  Vulgar libertarianism is the tendency to see any business-related relationship or institution as de facto just or good.³  Here, Block assumed that if the pinching takes place on private property, it is necessarily consensual by virtue of that fact alone.  While Block was correct to note the differences between private pinching and public pinching, and to point out that the private sector has systemic incentives to eliminate social ills in a way that the government sector does not, he made the irrational jump to concluding that private pinching is somehow not a violation of self-ownership.

It is important that we note the differences between libertarianism and vulgar libertarianism.  While the former is the consistent application of the non-aggression axiom and, by extension, a defence of all justly-acquired, scarce property, the latter is an inadvertent confusion within the libertarian movement between the true free market and the semi-, pseudo-, and un-free markets prevalent under statism.  While it certainly appears true that society has tended to prosper more greatly under state capitalism than under state socialism, nevertheless the libertarian rejects both systems, and confidently predicts that the greatest prosperity the masses can achieve would be achieved under what Rothbard called free-market capitalism or what Spangler calls free-market socialism.

Continued Dr. Block,

There is a serious problem with considering pinching or sexual molestation in a privately owned office or store to be coercive. If an action is really and truly coercive, it ought to be outlawed. But if pinching and sexual molestation are outlawed in private places, this violates the rights of those who voluntarily wish to engage in such practices.

What tortured logic!  This is like saying, “If rape is wrong, then we should outlaw sex.  But if sex is outlawed, this violates the rights of those who voluntarily wish to engage in such practices.”

Of course, the reality is that voluntary sex, unlike rape, should be completely legal precisely because it is voluntary, unlike rape.

Or, “If injecting unsuspecting victims with a drug is wrong, then drugs should be outlawed.  But if drugs are outlawed, this violates the rights of those who voluntarily wish to use them.”

Of course, the reality is that voluntary drug use, unlike forcibly injecting people with heroin against their will, should be completely legal precisely because it is voluntary, unlike forcible injection.

In other words, one does not have to prohibit voluntary pinching (or even voluntary sex) within the workplace to prohibit unconsensual pinching.  It is beyond me how Block ever came to such a silly conclusion.  (At least he realised the virtue in retracting this insanity.)

“The proof,” Block continues,

of the voluntary nature of an act in a private place is that the person endangered (the woman, in the cases we have been considering) has no claim whatsoever to the private place in question, the office or the store. If she continues to patronize or work at a place where she is molested, it can only be voluntary.

This is the same irrationality that leads some people to believe that the state is somehow “really voluntary.”  They say, “You choose not to move somewhere else, therefore you have consented to abiding by the laws of the area.”

Dr. Block would probably reply by correctly pointing out that there is a massive difference between the state and a private, voluntary institution like the free-market firm.  But a violation of property rights does not cease to be a violation of property rights simply because it takes place on another person’s property!

Let us imagine a scenario where radical libertarians have made sweeping victories, and the roads are, finally, all privately owned.  In some cases, the roads may be owned by private firms.  In some cases, they may be co-owned by the residents of the local community in the form of shares.  Whatever the case may be, there is no state ownership, control, or subsidisation of the streets.

Let’s imagine that Smith, who has permission from the owners of Baker Street, goes walking one night down the street and gets murdered by Robinson.  Let’s also say that Robinson is not caught, and thus is not forced to pay restitution for his crime to the family of his victim.

Would this mean that anyone else who traverses Baker Street has agreed to allow others to kill her or him merely by virtue of the fact that she or he has chosen to walk a street where another (Robinson) has been murdered?  Of course not!

Nor would we say that a woman who has been raped on Baker Street has agreed to all further sexual encounters she may have on the street simply by virtue of the fact that she continues to use that street in order to get home.

The only possible exception to this is in the scenario in which the owners of Baker Street have made it perfectly clear to all of their patrons that the street is to be a domain in which people may live out the Hobbesian war of all against all.  Only then could it be said that Smith has agreed to being raped, murdered, or otherwise victimised while traversing Baker Street.  But in any situation where this condition has not been clearly made in advance, it can be nothing but irrational to assume that the victim has “consented” to being victimised!

Let us consider the issue of murder within the home.  If Smith is a guest of Robinson and is standing in Robinson’s home, does Robinson have a right to pull out a gun and simply shoot Smith at will?  Absolutely not.

Robinson does have the right to expel Smith from her (Robinson’s) property, and to brandish her gun if necessary to perform the expulsion.  But Robinson has only the right to use as much force as is necessary to perform the expulsion; she does not have any right to use excessive force, i.e., force above and beyond that which is necessary to encourage Smith to leave.  Since shooting Smith in the head is almost always unnecessary, she therefore only has the right to do this if she feels that she (or her family, or other guests) are actually endangered by Smith.  (This use of force does not, in my opinion, violate the non-aggression axiom because it is a defensive use of force.)

Robinson may also shoot Smith if Smith explicitly consents.  Perhaps Smith wishes to commit suicide, but cannot bring himself to shooting himself.  Thus, he has come to his friend Robinson requesting that she assist him in his suicide.  She is no criminal, in accordance with natural law, for providing such assistance.⁴

Yet these appear to be the only instances in which one may use this sort of force.  One does not have a right to simply shoot one’s guests, at least not in accordance with natural law.  In a true anarchy where the common legal institutions recognise the supremacy of natural law, one has the right to do whatever one wants except for those actions that would violate the equal rights of others, and since one’s guest remains a self-owner even when she or her invites said guest onto her or his property, the property owner’s property rights clearly cannot extend to a “right” to alienate the property rights of her or his guests.

This bring us back to Tremblay, whose position appears to exemplify a certain vulgar socialism.  Where a vulgar libertarian may assume that property ownership gives one a perverse and totalitarian control over all persons who tread upon one’s property, Mr. Tremblay appears to make the opposite mistake, assuming property itself is perverse and totalitarian.  In fact, we can see that Tremblay makes this mistake by assuming the same property conditions that are assumed by the vulgar libertarians.

Mr. Tremblay writes,

NOTE to all the ancaps who are itching to reply that “sexual harassment is a form of aggression and is simply wrong”: that’s exactly our point. Capitalist property theory allows any form of injustice as long as it’s done “on one’s property.”

I do not know in what sense Mr. Tremblay is using the term “capitalist” here.  If capitalism is to be defined as that mercantilist system of corporate privilege which can only exist as a product of the visible fist of the state, then all libertarians, including anarcho-“capitalists,” are opposed to capitalism.  Contrariwise, if one defines “capitalism” as being synonymous with the free market, then all libertarians, even free-market anarcho-syndicalists and “anti-capitalist” mutualists, are “capitalists.”  But perhaps Mr. Tremblay is using the term in its most basic and value-free sense: a system where one or more person own and may trade ownership of the means of production.

If Mr. Tremblay is using this value-free definition, then he is incorrect to assume that there is any such thing as a “capitalist property theory.”  And if he is using one of the two value-laden definitions I describe here, then he would be well-advised to define which definition he is using, for one’s conclusions may very well be contingent upon which definition is employed.

I’ll simply assume that Tremblay intends to refer to the Rothbardian property theory, which is of course founded on the vitally-important homesteading principle, first developed by John Locke.  Rothbard holds that one cannot own a plot of land merely by claiming ownership over it.  Nor can one own a fenced-off plot of land merely by placing a fence around it.  One can only come to own a plot of land through “mixing one’s labour with the soil,” and as such, when one erects a fence without doing anything to the land that has been fenced off, one can only justly claim ownership of the land directly beneath the fence itself.  This is the Rothbardian property theory.

Rothbard demonstrates quite effectively just how egalitarian his theory of property is in volume one of his Conceived in Liberty (1975).⁵  Rothbard describes the situation of the evil Virginia Company, which was granted exclusive and authoriarian power by the Crown, granting large tracks of land to privileged elites, elites who in turn would never have been able to maintain dominion over the large tracks if they had been confined by the homesteading principle.  Instead of acquiring and accumulating land through the just means of homesteading and voluntary trade, these elites used labour from slaves and indentured servants to maintain illegitimate control over lands to which they had no right whatsoever.

Assuming Mr. Tremblay indeed did mean to reference the Rothbardian theory of property, let us analyse whether his claim is accurate.  Does such a theory of property allow “any form of injustice as long as it’s done ‘on one’s property’”?  As I have already explained above, it does not.  What I do not believe I have yet sufficiently explained is precisely why it does not.

The short answer is this: the law of non-contradiction.  If I have a right to justly-acquired scarce property that I have either homesteaded myself or that I have acquired through voluntary trade from someone else who has justly-acquired it, it can only be the case that I have this right if and because I justly own my own body and the fruits of my labour.  I cannot justly own any external property if I do not own my own body and the fruits of my labour for, without these prerequisites, how could I ever come to own other things?

Yet, if we live in a universe where the law of non-contradiction is active and real, in a universe in which two contradictory facts cannot both be true, then for a human like me to have a natural right to self-ownership, it must also be the case that other humans also have the same, equal right to self-ownership.  The reason my property ownership cannot justify my murder of you is that our mutual self-ownership is a natural prerequisite to either of us owning any external property in the first place.  To murder you, even if the murder takes place on my property, I must believe that self-ownership is some sort of fiction, and if I do believe it is some sort of fiction, it stands to reason that I cannot accurately be described as someone who believes in any property rights whatsoever.

It is because Mr. Tremblay has recently adopted a vulgar libertarian view of property that he has recently, and unfortunately, declined into a vulgar socialism.⁶  And this precisely illustrates my point, that vulgar libertarianism and vulgar socialism fuel each other.  The vulgar libertarian sees the vulgar socialist saying “property is theft” and, unthinkingly and uncritically, counters that all property is good.  The vulgar socialist sees the vulgar libertarian saying that big business can do no wrong and, unthinkingly and uncritically, attacks all market activity and division of labour.  Both sides talk past one another, with neither side making any useful progress.

Above, Block assumed that in order to allow voluntary, consensual pinching to take place, we would need to allow all pinching, including involuntary pinching.  Similarly, Tremblay assumes that to oppose involuntary pinching that takes place on private property, we would need to oppose all private property.  In both of these cases, I cannot help but to see the conclusions presented as total absurdities.  If it is true that all pinching is de facto okay, Block certainly has not proved it, and if it is true that abolition of all property rights to external resources is necessary to protect self-ownership, Tremblay has certainly not failed to prove it, either.

Further, in both cases, reason appears to indicate that both are wrong.  It appears to me that reason indicates that a business owner cannot justly claim ownership over her firm if she does not respect the property rights of the self-owners with whom she interacts.  But likewise, it appears to me that reason indicates that if a person has a right to not be pinched, she must naturally have a property right in the scarce matter that constitutes her physical body.⁷  If this is the case, then it would stand to reason that she also owns the product of her labour, for one’s labour is naturally and indubitably an extension of one’s self.  Thus, in the same way that the vulgar libertarian defies her own belief in property rights when using property claims to “validate” violations of the rights of other self-owners, the vulgar socialist likewise defies her own belief in the invalidity of external property claims when she uses notions of individual autonomy in order to argue against any individual control over those things appropriated from the state of nature through one’s labour.

Therefore, both Block (circa 1975) and Tremblay (currently) appear flawed in their analyses.
  But, perhaps I am wrong.  Perhaps I have misread Dr. Block or Mr. Tremblay—or both!
⁸  And I’ll be more than willing to consider arguments to the contrary.  In the meantime, all I can say is that I recommend that all libertarians, left and “right,” beware of the lure of vulgar libertarianism and of vulgar socialism alike, for each of them can do nothing good for those who desire liberty, equality, or peace, but instead can only lead to the promulgation of the other.  Let all libertarians, left and “right,” unite, rather than allowing our vulgar variants divide us.

—Alexander S. Peak

______________

¹ I feel obligated to point out that, according to Mr. Stephen Kinsella, Dr. Block has (I’m happy to say) completely retracted his view on pinching.  On Brad Spangler’s blog, Kinsella quotes Block as saying,

“That passage about secretary pinching appeared in the very first edition (1976) of Defending the Undefendable. When this error of mine was pointed out to me, I immediately insisted that a new edition be published, and those words were deleted from it and all subsequent editions. Those erroneous words of mine were incompatible with the libertarian non aggression principle, and with everything else I have ever written about that subject.”

² Of course, even if this is the case, the employee is free under natural law to, at any time, no longer consent to being party to such a relationship—just as married couples under natural law are free to divorce at any time.

Let’s say I make an agreement with my boss that she may pinch me at any time, and a year later I decide I no longer enjoy being pinched by her.  I inform her that I no longer consent to being pinched.  She may then threaten to take me off her Christmas list, she may threaten to fire me, she may threaten to call all of her friends and tell them I have a small penis—but what she may not do is initiate physical force against me.  Thus, if she pinches me again even after I inform her that she may not, then she has aggressed against me, and it is my absolute and undeniable right to sue her for this crime.

Unfortunately, Dr. Block would disagree with us on this matter.  He unfortunately believes that voluntary slavery contracts would be enforceable in a free society, despite the fact that Murray Rothbard had repeatedly pointed out that it is impossible for someone to surrender ownership of her or his own body as long as it is attached to the will.  If I make a contract with your recording company to record three albums, and I only record two, the Rothbardian position is that I may not be forced to perform the writing of a third album, and that your recording company is only obliged to fulfill its end of the bargain once I have fulfilled mine.  Block, it would appear, believes that I may be justly compelled with force to write and perform songs for a third album.  It appears like the consensus is against Dr. Block here—most anarchists and libertarians I have encountered reject the “voluntary slavery contract” thesis.

For some interesting thoughts on contract theory as it relates to the current matter of pinching, see Kinsella’s reply to Spangler’s post.

³ Such tendencies often lead otherwise good libertarians into inadvertently defending conditions resulting from statism or aggression as if those conditions were instead the product of market.  The term vulgar libertarian was coined by Kevin Carson.  While I do not agree with Carson on everything, I believe his contribution to libertarian thought in critiquing vulgar libertarianism tends to be rather useful.

⁴ Nevertheless, it cannot be merely assumed that Smith consents to assisted suicide merely by accepting Robinson’s invitation to enter Robinson’s home.  Nor, I would argue, can it even be assumed that Smith has consented to assisted suicide at the hands of Robinson by breaking into Robinson’s home.  Again, only if Robinson actually feels as though an inhabitant of her home is endangered by Smith—or Smith has explicitly and contractually consented to assisted suicide—may Robinson justly take Smith’s life.  For further thoughts on assisted suicide, see my The Intelligent Yet Flawed Jonah Goldberg, 8 July 2008.

⁵ It must be admitted that Rothbard would never describe himself as an egalitarian, but this seems to be because he defines egalitarianism to mean the sort of insane, forced “equality” one finds in Kurt Vonnegut’s great short story, “Harrison Bergeron.”

Dr. Roderick Long makes the excellent point that libertarianism is actually founded on a fundamental belief in equality.  Writes Long,

“[W]e must turn from Jefferson to Jefferson’s source, John Locke, who tells us exactly what ‘equality’ in the libertarian sense is: namely, a condition ‘wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another, there being nothing more evident than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another, without subordination or subjection….’

“In short, the equality that Locke and Jefferson speak of is equality in authority: the prohibition of any ‘subordination or subjection’ of one person to another. Since any interference by A with B’s liberty constitutes a subordination or subjection of B to A, the right to liberty follows straightforwardly from the equality of ‘power and jurisdiction’” (Equality: The Unknown Ideal, 29 September 2001).

⁶ This is not to imply that Mr. Tremblay (or any other vulgar socialist or vulgar libertarian) is a hopeless case, or even that nothing he contributes to libertarian thought is valuable.  Rather, I am of the hope that this deviation will be short-lived.  For clarity, I do not encourage that anyone treat Mr. Tremblay too hostilely, for such reactionary tendencies are just as likely to lead a libertarian to vulgar libertarianism as they have lead Mr. Tremblay toward vulgar socialism.

⁷ This point is one that I do not anticipate Mr. Tremblay rejecting.  Even if he rejects the rhetoric I use, and claims not to believe in “self-ownership,” it appears clear he does believe in self-ownership as I understand the term, lest he would not have a problem with the unwanted pinching of secretaries in the first place.  I’ll therefore assume that his anti-propertarianism simply rejects that property which is external to the physical self.  What is important here is the following sentence, in which I discuss the implications of self-ownership.

The reason I do not wish to assume that Tremblay rejects self-ownership is that I do not want to run the risk of employing a straw-man argument.  If Tremblay actually does reject self-ownership, not just in rhetoric but also in fact, then it would be easy to tear down his argument and show how he cannot possibly defend a prohibition of or opposition to pinching without it.  Moreover, if this is actually the case, then Mr. Tremblay would be unable to muster any arguments whatsoever against rape, murder, or even that institutionalisation of aggression we call the state.  But people make straw-man arguments all too often, and I am more than willing to give Mr. Tremblay the benefit of the doubt here.

⁸ I’ll certainly admit that I have not read everything written by either Block or Tremblay, so it is quite possible that they have written other things that, were I aware of these works, I would have written this entire piece in a very different manner.