Forums of the Libertarian Left

"Oh please. I am the motherfuckin' Alliance of the Libertarian Left, and you've just been appointed Minister (Mistress?) of Prose."

That would make you the Prime Minister Incarnate? Well, I've no objection to you ruling as long as I reign; we all know where real power lies, and actually like governing a country sounds like (yech) work. I must admit, however, that I am slightly disturbed by the suggestion of monarchy implicit in your choice of parliamentary titles. I believe that there is a truly libertarian and anarchist concept of the democratic ideal, and think we ought to reach consensus before appointing anyone as the spokesperson for this new improved movement of ours. You're welcome to comprehend political reality by the evidence of your senses and the active judgment of your own mind, of course, but I personally prefer a res publica to a romanticised system of vassalage. You see, where I come from, we kill kings.

As for the prose thing, I was doing that the entire time, and it's not as hard as some people go on about. But I've no objection to adding reading and writing to my portfolio of duties.

Which reminds me... I have the most awesome artistic idea ever for the Barbarians for Civilisation website. Please write so that we may discuss the details. It will involve evading laws.

shawnpwilbur wrote:is it possible that we have some wrong, or at least unhelpful, notion of what it means to be "revolutionary?"

Well, I purposely used the term "revolutionary" as a way to distinguish Preston's advocacy from the radical politics almost all of us in ALL share. It has to do with Preston's pan-secessionist strategy which, if you're interested, you can get a sense for here and here. Preston takes a Bakuninist approach in that he sees real resistance coming from those most marginalized by the system, and therefore from those with the least to lose by tearing it down. The observation that many in radical politics are not revolutionary is merely a suspicion that many marginalized individuals carry in their hearts a preference for eventual protection and acceptance from the establishment over actually smashing the system of oppression. So it does focus us to ask who will be on the front lines.

shawnpwilbur wrote:If it is a coalition to man the barricades that you're trying to form, then you can probably count me among the only-marginally revolutionary material. If you want, on the other hand, to siphon so much credibility away from that weird complex of naked emperors that includes the state, capitalism, hetero-patriarchy, white supremacy, etc., (as a total strategy, should we be so lucky, or as a preliminary to expropriation) then it seems like everybody has their work to do.

Well, I think we need both. I'm not trying to knock people who want to work against hetero-patriarchy and white supremacy. I'm simply saying that merely being "against" these things is not revolutionary. And at some point, we need organization and boots on the ground. And many different political tendencies see this necessity.

Soviet-

I can't, of course, allow you to outqueer me with your excellent BDSM Last Supper photoshop job. So I will have to hand over the job of speaking for me to the noted Hoppean Gloria Gaynor, who in 1978 had already anticipated the discourse of the left-libertarian movement:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tth-8wA3PdY

I should have changed my stupid lock,
I should have made you leave your key,
If I had known for just one second
You'd be back to bother me.

Go on now,
Go walk out the door!
Just turn around now,
'Cause you're not welcome anymore!
Weren't you the one who tried to hurt me with goodbye?
You think I'd crumble?
You think I'd lay down and die?
Oh no, not I.

Of course, Gaynor also had her Roarkian individualist moments:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqQ7iCXhTAo

I am what I am.
I don't want praise,
I don't want pity.
I bang my own drum;
Some think it's noise-
I think it's pretty!
And so what if I love each sparkle and each bangle?
Why not try to see things from a different angle?
Your Life is a sham
'Till you can shout out:
I am what I am.

I haven't mentioned Gaynor previously, despite my appreciation for her work, because I've been very hesitant to present myself in any juxtaposition with the Gayest Thing. Ever., and especially because her songs are a staple for drag performers, and confusing a transsexual woman with a gay male drag queen is one of the more hurtful gaffes possible on matters related to gender and sexuality.

But I've since decided that this is all stupid. Gaynor's songs are obviously a hymn to individualism and the Promethean spirit, and belong to all projects of human liberation. While I'm at it, I'm going to stop pretending that I don't love Les Mis and Rent. There is no sense in denying what one cares about, simply because a puritanical culture afraid of the theatre wishes to tar the arts and letters with jealous allegations of sexual impropriety. We're supposed to be having fun in this brief life.

Besides, I'm down with drag queens, too. We will never get anywhere with finishing the incomplete project of reason and freedom if we play cruel little brown paper bag games about who's a notch above or below whom the oppression totem pole. So I'm not going to do anything like that. That would be low and repulsive.

And now, a final word, to my bête noire, Keith Preston:

Sir,

The cause for which you have fought has not been noble, and you have not fought it cleanly. But you have fought well, and long, and hard, in have done so in proud defiance of superior might and numbers. In doing so you have shown your quality and your gravity.

But your cause is now lost. You have aroused swarms of enemies against you, and you are caught within your last fortress. Your friends have left you, or can no longer aid you in your struggle. You stand naked in the dark, and no veil now stands between you and your final judgment.

Yet you may still preserve your place of honour among your people, or may retire honourably to pursue your private affairs. Please, sir, have the grace to observe your duties to posterity, and concede the conclusion of this war with the dignity of a formal recognition of the separation of our forces, in such form and style as may come naturally to you. For our business is now finished, whether you will or not, and Providence has decreed that our peoples shall go their separate ways.

I salute you.



It's over. Come on, boys and girls, let's go home. Or rather, let's stop arguing over these culture war issues that seem to be solving themselves anyway and go back to the Big War. 'Cause there's a mad, murderous Evil Empire out there and there's nobody but us irrelevant subculturalists around to save it. And there are only now, what, like, nine of us?

Finis.
{)(*)(}

How many LLers ARE there, anyway?

Well, now that we've at last brought stability to the realm of West-Libertaria, how about a census?

I would say that there are at least a couple hundred self-described and committed left-libs. The exact number is kind of hard to predict because there's a nebulous cloud of low-hanging fruit within the "mainstream" left and libertarian milieux, and fellow travelers who don't describe themselves as left-libs, but definitely fit our bill more than they do any other (Pete Eyre, Angela Keaton, Mary Ruwart, Chris Sciabarra etc.).

I wasn't asking you, I was asking LLers. I couldn't care less what *you* think.

Francois Tremblay wrote:I wasn't asking you, I was asking LLers. I couldn't care less what *you* think.

Cold, Kermit. Cold!

Jeremy, I think a lot of the problem in this discussion comes from our differing perspectives on who has most or least to lose. Preston's "revolutionaries" sometimes look more than a bit reactionary to me. He says that "it is strategically foolish to adopt an antagonistic stance towards towards the traditional and majoritarian culture of the working masses," and, whatever other distinctions he successfully breaks down in his analysis, this one, between "the traditional and majoritarian culture of the working masses," and all of us suspect that traditional, majoritarian, (straight, patriarchal, etc.,) culture might inextricable from "the State" and all that, never seems to give way much. Don't many of the potential "boots on the ground" in Keith's coalition have at least as much to lose from a real overthrow of the present system as any of the rest of us, and potentially much more? I'm fighting for a world in which people can't be glib and dismissive about things like patriarchy and racism, unless it's because we have finally deposited them in the dustbin of history.

shawnpwilbur wrote:Jeremy, I think a lot of the problem in this discussion comes from our differing perspectives on who has most or least to lose. Preston's "revolutionaries" sometimes look more than a bit reactionary to me.

Yeah, but from Preston's point of view, this would make sense. He sees the establishment moving in a center-left direction, so it would be natural to see those with reactionary tendencies opposing the state.

shawnpwilbur wrote:He says that "it is strategically foolish to adopt an antagonistic stance towards towards the traditional and majoritarian culture of the working masses," and, whatever other distinctions he successfully breaks down in his analysis, this one, between "the traditional and majoritarian culture of the working masses," and all of us suspect that traditional, majoritarian, (straight, patriarchal, etc.,) culture might inextricable from "the State" and all that, never seems to give way much. Don't many of the potential "boots on the ground" in Keith's coalition have at least as much to lose from a real overthrow of the present system as any of the rest of us, and potentially much more?

I don't think Preston considers most of these members of the majoritarian culture revolutionary, either. When he brings up the point about not offending normal people, it's simply because he sees populism as a route to seizing legitimacy from the establishment state. He makes it pretty clear in his writing that what he foresees is a small portion of the population actively revolutionary - but with popular support based in traditional narratives of historical revolution and resistance and suspicion of elite government.

In my opinion, most of the NAs who participate on the Attack the System discussion group are pretty committed to revolution. They also frame their theories of tribalism as a defense of indigenous and oppressed peoples of the world. This is not a eurocentric or supremacist ideology.

Another problem I have with the attacks on National Anarchism is that they appeal to very specific constructions of left libertarianism. I see why Soviet Onion, for example, opposes the ideology. But does he not see identitarianism in even our own alliance? I'd imagine he is making a pragmatic decision to not reject left libertarians even as he disagrees with them. This is fortunate, because it allows us to form a consensus on mutually shared goals and cultivate a tolerant dialogue. As you may expect, I think this principle can be extended more widely with narrower ends.

shawnpwilbur wrote:I'm fighting for a world in which people can't be glib and dismissive about things like patriarchy and racism, unless it's because we have finally deposited them in the dustbin of history.

Personally, I think people being glib and dismissive about these abstractions is the least of our worries. I'm fighting for a world that is sane enough that these instances of bigotry will melt away because they get no social subsidy. I'm not here to engineer behaviors, and I'm certainly not here to psychoanalyze the world. On that point, I think Keith is 100% right - you can have a opinion about what motivates human negativity without appointing yourself Minister of Psychotherapy.

jeremy6d wrote:I'm not here to engineer behaviors, and I'm certainly not here to psychoanalyze the world. On that point, I think Keith is 100% right - you can have a opinion about what motivates human negativity without appointing yourself Minister of Psychotherapy.

Well, honestly, who the fuck is here to do those things?

Privilege, whether is is economic privilege, protection by the armed forces of the state, or the ability to dismiss other people's actual experience of the world in glib terms, remains privilege. And reactionary "boots on the ground" are going to be fighting for their particular privileges, whether it's through pan-ghettoism or something more ambitious. To talk about "psychoanalyzing" the world and "engineering behaviors" is cheap. Presumably, you have an *analysis* of the world, and of what the most and least of our problems are, but for some reason the alternative to that analysis is "psychoanalysis."

Fuck it. I guess we'll just have to see who ends up on what side of what barricades, assuming any of this goes down. At present, I have damn few solid predictions...

Yeah, but from Preston's point of view, this would make sense. He sees the establishment moving in a center-left direction, so it would be natural to see those with reactionary tendencies opposing the state.

1. To be replaced with local authoritarianisms that are qualitatively worse.

2. Bad-weather anti-Establishmentarianism is pretty damn worthless if you ask me.

I don't think Preston considers most of these members of the majoritarian culture revolutionary, either. When he brings up the point about not offending normal people, it's simply because he sees populism as a route to seizing legitimacy from the establishment state.

A revolution that doesn't make genuine progress for individualism is a revolution not worth having. We've been around that block many times before and the only lasting thing it's ever produced that's mattered are piles of dead bodies.

Another problem I have with the attacks on National Anarchism is that they appeal to very specific constructions of left libertarianism.

Well, I think at the very least that left-libertarianism should embrace a universalistic conception of human value and freedom. That's something that holds true whether you're a natural rights advocate (like Rod and Charles), an egoist (like Aster) or a utilitarian (like Will). The alternative is to worship things that substitute for actual people, like reified differences and "cultures", which I consider to be an anti-human perspective by definition. Most political perspectives are a confused combination of the two, but national anarchism epitomizes anti-humanity, as does fascism proper.

That's the reason I oppose it, not primarily because most of its adherents are the recipients of white and male privilege (so are most of us, after all). The use of subcultural identity by people as a sphere of counter-power against same larger, foreign culture being foisted upon them (indigenous nation vs the settler society and its "colonialist logic", for instance) is always counter-productive, at best.

So no, it doesn't gain the NA's any points that they're willing to stick up for some Amazonian horticulturalists being forced off their land by logging companies, because what they're really focused on preserving is the group identity, not the people within it. And yes, believe it or not, there have been many liberation movements by people of color that explicitly rejected race-based responses to racism. Go read some Chu Minyi, or Ba Jin, or W.E.B. Dubois, or maybe even, you know, Martin Luther King.

But does he not see identitarianism in even our own alliance?

No. Talking about people as a distinct group is simply a convenient speech technique, given the current limits of organic communication technology. It's not the same thing as fetishizing the group over and above the actual people who happen to make it up, and using that as the basis for affinity/personhood in substitution. That's the key difference.

I'd imagine he is making a pragmatic decision to not reject left libertarians even as he disagrees with them.

1. Most of us seem to agree with certain fundamentals and first/core principles.
2. Most of us also agree with the implications of desired means and desired ends, so even if we don't agree why those are good things (like you and I don't seem to) we can still work together without me contradicting myself. Not so with village fascists who want something I consider to be immensely bad on whatever scale it would happen to exist, period.

This is fortunate, because it allows us to form a consensus on mutually shared goals and cultivate a tolerant dialogue. As you may expect, I think this principle can be extended more widely with narrower ends.

. . . up until the point that you're consciously and actively empowering something that contradicts one of the more fundamental reasons for getting off the bench in the first place.

Personally, I think people being glib and dismissive about these abstractions is the least of our worries.

My uncle was once stabbed in his own apartment for no other reason than that he took it up the ass and somebody else couldn't fucking live with that knowledge. That is not an abstraction.

Neither is State violence an abstraction. But at the same time, show me where the State exists apart from the relationships and beliefs that constitute it and enable it to function. Follow the bread crumb trail back far enough and all violence, all dominance, is psychology. And thus it's all the same.

I'm fighting for a world that is sane enough that these instances of bigotry will melt away because they get no social subsidy.

Me too. Now aren't those things themselves also part of the point? Or aren't they both specific concerns related to a more fundamental point?

I'm not here to engineer behaviors, and I'm certainly not here to psychoanalyze the world.

You've already implicitly psychoanalyzed the world by singling out state-subsidy as a pillar of racism and patriarchy.

On that point, I think Keith is 100% right - you can have a opinion about what motivates human negativity without appointing yourself Minister of Psychotherapy.

Do you bother to have an opinion on what motivates a soldier to raise his gun? Or what motivates a riot cop to raise his truncheon? Or what motivates a judge to sentence someone to prison for a non-violent offense? Do you think it is necessary to address these pathological motivations and move a significant chunk of the world's people away from them for any chance at a functional stateless society?

Statism, like everything else, doesn't exist over and apart from the relationships that make it up, or the psychologies behind those relationships.

I'm quite tempted by the conclusion that the establishement of a healthy and sustainable anarchy will not be very likely without at least some degree of cultural progress (this isn't necessarily to say that it requires some sort of overnight change of mind or an absolute consensus among people, however), and in this sense I do view anarchism as a long-term project. There is a sense in which the state is merely a symptom of a much more fundamental problem and it seems important to consider root causes. Various states will likely continue to come and go in the near-future, and it seems like anarchist stragedy may need to focus more on the proliferation of damping mechanisms that undermine the prospect for authoritarian institutions to come about and sustain themselves.

Getting rid of a state is one thing, but establishing a healthy cultural atmosphere that makes people "ungovernable" and makes the state a historical relic of the past is another thing that is admittedly harder (but it is vitally necessary for it to be addressed). I would be concerned about it being completely neglected because that seems to miss the big picture. Perhaps it makes more sense to think in terms of "making the state obsolete", rather than "abolishing the state" in a more narrow sense. Abolishing the current state may be a vital goal, but it is not the most long-term goal. I don't really think of anarchy as merely being the disestablishment of a particular state. That would be necessary but not entirely sufficient. It seems like the lack of a strong seed for a future state becomes vitally important as well.

I don't think that we are doomed for perpetual statism, but I do think that the "libertarianization of society" is a much broader task with a much fuller scope than many libertarians seem to think it is. There is a significant degree to which the libertarian movement has failed to achieve its goals partially because libertarians have tended to attack symptoms instead of causes (as well as the whole organizational problem with "Big L" and minarchist politics). Vulgar libertarianism (which is sometimes vieled behind a "big tent" or "plumbline" position) has also made libertarianism's image rather negative among the public, especially for left-leaning people who otherwise might have been more interested in libertarianism. And, by and large, unfortunately the public has not significantly broken from the mainstream and authoritarian left-right paradigm. I view the left-libertarian movement as an intersting shattering of that paradigm.

Brainpolice: Word.

This is copied from my last post in the "Monster Thread" over at Radgeek's blog. I think it's somewhat relevant to this little section of the debate over here.

It’s precisely because the source of power isn’t concentrated that it makes no sense to choose one obvious manifestation as the focal point, even before deciding which central manifestation it is. It has to do more with ingrained psychological habits and worldviews, or how people view the relationship between themselves and the world.(=)

The specifics of an solution would involve a shift away from reified thought-forms first and foremost. Nationalism, racism, classism, sexism and homophobia are all fairly prominent and vile manifestations of that (and incidentally the first three have all been explicit ideological foundations for states), but I’d even go so far as oppose things like ethnic pride, NIMBY, preservation of “cultures” etc. The worship of constructs designed to represent a group of people in place of those people themselves makes it that much easier to dehumanize, dominate and hurt them, and for others to stand idly by while it happens.

If this sounds ridiculously extreme or totalitarian, you should know that I’m not the only person to frame anarchism this way. Both Stirner and Goldman did the same. Primitivists also make the same case a la Dunbar’s Number. But where they would reduce the population to make society fit the number, I would say do what we can to improve ourselves and transcend whatever limitations are there (even if it eventually comes at the expense of biological integrity).

But because so many of our existing mental subroutines are good and useful, and have gotten humanity to where it is today, I don’t subscribe to the Puritan tenet that superficially “evil” desires need to be purged from our from our consciousness to create a New Anarchist Man, as most “social justice” perspectives seem to contend. Greed and selfishness simply need to be declassed, and their association with dominance replaced with the post-scarcity power of self-improvement (which allows others to share in it without getting trampled, and indeed, benefit equally through the process)(===). Seriously, crack open some Fourier, people. Most psychologists will tell you that such a desire is naturally emergent in people who aren’t beaten down or shamed away from it at some point.

That’s where anarchy lies, at the crossroads of egoism and empathy, and the best anarchists among us have always known that.

(=) I realized that to some people this could look extremely close to Baudrillard-style relativist idiocy. The difference is that the problem of "power-over" is objectively bad in all situations at all times, for the same reasons, and can be identified as uniform and universal as it manifests in people and societies. It isn’t a case of post-modern “anything can mean anything and it's all the same thing” bullshit.

(==) It’s my opinion that the anti-consumerist swamp should take their rightful place beside the primitivists, Marxists and other latter day manifestations of the Abrahamic tradition. That these factions are often opposed to each other proves nothing that conflict between different sects of Islam doesn’t.

(===) That’s also part of the reason I’m in favor of freed-markets. Sure, there’s the obvious material advantage of not having to stand in lines outside the co-op store for our bread ration as anarcho-communism would eventually have us doing, but polycentric ordering institutions also lend themselves less easily to being worshiped as an end until themselves. They prevent elevation of “the community” to the detriment of the community.

LMAO @ the Baudrillard referance. The next time I see someone use the word "simulacra", my head is going to explode.

shawnpwilbur wrote:Privilege, whether it is economic privilege, protection by the armed forces of the state, or the ability to dismiss other people's actual experience of the world in glib terms, remains privilege.

Being unempathetic is a privilege? I just don't see how "the ability to dismiss other people's actual experience of the world in glib terms" is a privilege.

shawnpwilbur wrote:And reactionary "boots on the ground" are going to be fighting for their particular privileges, whether it's through pan-ghettoism or something more ambitious.

Which is precisely why I've never advocated pan-secessionism as a cure all. I simply think it's a viable route to decentralizing power; that doesn't mean that there aren't other features of power that need to be addressed.

shawnpwilbur wrote:To talk about "psychoanalyzing" the world and "engineering behaviors" is cheap. Presumably, you have an *analysis* of the world, and of what the most and least of our problems are, but for some reason the alternative to that analysis is "psychoanalysis."

Well, look. Throughout this conversation - maybe not here, but elsewhere and often - I have repeatedly stressed the distinction between an analysis of the situation and a strategy for realizing one's analysis. My particular analysis leans in a similar direction as yours (and is quite distinct from Preston's), except I see meanness and smallness as traits not to be overcome so much as understood and balanced. I'm extremely skeptical of an argument that seeks to place basic human behaviors in the set of things to be abolished.

IMHO, where we differ most greatly is on the question of what to do about this left libertarian analysis. There's no reason we have to choose one or another, but as you said people tend to want to emphasize a certain plan of action over others. Frankly, those who have advocated addressing the more subtle causes of privilege and rulership don't seem to have very concrete suggestions for what to do other than to polemicize - important work, to be sure, but perhaps not enough. Cross-ideological pan-secessionist alliance is a more material means to realize a different world. Whether you think this different world has less privilege than another is certainly an area we can disagree on, and I'd love to see other ideas on what we can do (and wouldn't you too?).

On the "psychoanalysis" comment, I'm sorry if that came off wrong. I'm skeptical of any ideology that seeks to change people fundamentally. How do you go about changing people's attitudes? I'm not saying it's impossible, but it seems like even more of a moving target than the state.

shawnpwilbur wrote:Fuck it. I guess we'll just have to see who ends up on what side of what barricades, assuming any of this goes down. At present, I have damn few solid predictions...

Right. I could, after all, be wrong.

Keith Preston's posted another essay, one visibly sagging with egregious references to nearly every racist, fascist and proto-fascist intellectual, 'intellectual', and philosopher of infuence whose effect upon our current political climate has hitherto been mostly veiled. Is it good that we may all see clearly now and appreciate his loyalty to his philosophical base.

In doing so, he has graciously provided public documentation acknowledging the irrevocable division of the ALL and ARV:

I will go further than that and cease participation in the 'left-libertarian' milieu altogether, on the grounds of 'irreconcilable differences,', with two exceptions. One exception will be for my relationships and associations with those individual left-libertarians who are also part of the pan-secessionist, national-anarchist, anarcho-pluralist, New Right, left-conservative or other movements that I am also associated with (1). There are more of these than some might think. The other exception will be for the promotion of left-libertarian scholars whose work I respect (such as Kevin) (2).

My gratitude to a man who is, however utterly evil his politics, exceptionally intelligent, perceptive, steadfast, courageous, and not wholly lacking in honour.

Keith asks two exceptions for his acknowledgment.

The first exception (1) offered in his discussion of terms of settlement seems entirely fair. The second (2) is mostly and essentially fair, especially as it's impossible on the internet not to constantly cross-reference one's opponents with links and other fair use references.

However, as a gentleman, Keith should recognise that it very improper to imply comradeship where none exists, and as such I think it is only fair to insist that (2a) he not in any way imply or suggest endorsement of his own views by any ALLy he might wish to link to (which has not generally been his practice, so this is hardly an onerous demand), unless such endorsement is expressly endorsed by the linkee, and that (2b) he drop from his periodic promotional listing links to articles whose authors have explicitly stated that they wish nothing further to do with him, as to do otherwise would constitute a fraudulent pretense and a breach of courtesy.

Jeremy Weiland (c.f.1), who has been Keith's valiant defender, has certainly proven his comradeship with Keith Preson as well as his sincere and kind-hearted solidarity with the left-libertarian movement. Kevin Carson, (c.f.2) I believe, has suggested that he would wish to allow Keith this level of recognition, which, as a friend, is only his right. However, I believe that Thomas Knapp (c.f.2a) (would someone please ring him), and any other ALLy Keith has promoted in the past, should be made aware of our recent left-libertarian conflict and its proposed resolution, and their decision as to whether they wish to be promoted by the author of 'Is Extremism in Defense of Sodomy no Vice?' should be respected by Kieth, and by all of us.

I hope that Keith respects the facts of reality and accepts these terms for the sake of peace and our mutual ability to pursue our own projects without further hassles, and it would be appreciated if those Keith has promoted in the past, such as Charles Johnson (c.f.2b?), Thomas Knapp(c.f.2a?), and Sheldon Richman(c.f.2b), would be kind enough to privately or publically express their concerns as relates to Keith Preston, his essay, national anarchism, and/or matters of diplomatic sanction on their own or a public forum of their convenience.

I believe that it would be wise for Keith to observe this fair and just refinement of terms, as he currently has enough trouble on his hands in his own house,

http://attackthesystem.com/2009/05/the- ... omment-759 ,

where, incidentally, some very interesting discussion has spontaneously sprung out of the ground discussing the phenomenon of conservative stealth queers, with suggestions as to the necesse est standards which a conservative civilisation must insist upon as a matter of its own covenant of public decency and decorum:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/attackthe ... ssage/7253 (and it goes on for a bit).

Given this objective situation, I think these terms should prove fair to all, and, while they may not be entirely to Keith's liking, they are far preferable to the state of affairs which could result if he refused to observed these conditions. He has himself made allusion to the recognition of reality in his latest article:

I have no power to 'purge' anything except a turd out my own a-s.

I understand this to mean, as a matter of necessity, if not volition, that his motion for a "purge, if not a [b[pogrom[/[>(emphasis mine)", of "so many self-hating whites, bearded ladies, cock-ringed queers, or persons of one or another surgically altered 'gender identity'", is no longer with us.

Given this state of affairs, and his recent self-revelation as a 'pagan, a Machiavellian, a Nietzschean, and a Stirnerite', I believe we obviously need little intelligence to recognise that we need not drag out this affair any longer; everything may be clearly left to its own purposes, and gravity will see that things fall to such places as their natures merit. Mr. Preston shall doubtlessly be awarded limitless time to build his coalition with the similarly situated national anarchist, white nationalist, and <i>nouvelle driot'</i> company he has elected to befriend and keep. May Fortune show her benevolence towards them all as they merit.

This war is past over, and I would very much prefer not to dominate the conversation with any further need for unsightly rhetoric, such as that recently portrayed by the excellent Soviet Onion. I hope this consensus of carving up the bits and pieces shall give satisfaction to all.

And I hope this unfortunate conflict shall serve as a clear precedent for the standards of tolerance for the left-libertarian community.

~=~

Now, wasn't this a ridiculous amount of trouble to go to just because some cranky guy with a chip on his shoulder (and very good reasons to eloquently decry the injustice inflicted upon him by an unjust and prejudiced society) has an obsession with 0.45 kilos of meat? Can I go home and do the stuff that fits me now? As any kender will tell you, law is BOOOOOOOOOORING, even noncoercive anarcho-libertarian law (OMG! This stuff works!), and I'd much rather if some guys and not me would handle this stuff.

{)(*)(}

This war is past over, and I would very much prefer not to dominate the conversation with any further need for unsightly rhetoric, such as that recently portrayed by the excellent Soviet Onion. I hope this consensus of carving up the bits and pieces shall give satisfaction to all.

And I hope this unfortunate conflict shall serve as a clear precedent for the standards of tolerance for the left-libertarian community.

Wow, you Randians sure know how to throw a schism, I'll give you that. You prosecuted this war with style, grace and ferocity, but I'll be glad to put its memory behind me.

And with regard to your challenge:

I can't, of course, allow you to outqueer me with your excellent BDSM Last Supper photoshop job. So I will have to hand over the job of speaking for me to the noted Hoppean Gloria Gaynor, who in 1978 had already anticipated the discourse of the left-libertarian movement:

yaaaaaaawn . . . Oh please. That was a fine attempt, but you've got nothing on this fairy's magical power. With I snap of my fingers I hereby take it up a notch. BEHOLD!!!





JUST REMEMBER KIDS, WHEREVER YOU GO, THE INTERNET ALWAYS FINDS YOU.

Aster wrote:Given this objective situation, I think these terms should prove fair to all, and, while they may not be entirely to Keith's liking, they are far preferable to the state of affairs which could result if he refused to observed these conditions. He has himself made allusion to the recognition of reality in his latest article:

You're enjoying victory. Shame on you!

Enjoyment and victory are both clear signs of depravity, Aster.

[/snark]

I'm not really used to winning. I'm going to have to take some time to adjust. However, I'm planning to enjoy it too.

One small step for left-libertarianism, one giant leap for a [few] left-libertarian[s].

"JUST REMEMBER KIDS, WHEREVER YOU GO, THE INTERNET ALWAYS FINDS YOU."

Then we must thank you for acting on behalf on the Internet to bring left-libertarianism under the dominion of the most infamous of all Rules, the all-powerful Rule 34.

Jeremy,

The hotspot I was using this afternoon wolfed down a long reply to your post, but here's the outline anyway:

Lack of empathy is not privilege, but conditions under which one's lack of empathy don't count against you much as a good and conscientious individual usually are. And that is a big or a small problem depending on the context and the countervailing influences. Progress in the realm of ideas and values seems more than just possible. We don't have to look very far into history to see dramatic changes in prevailing notions about the role of government, race, security, liberty, etc. Unfortunately, a lot of the recent changes have been for the worse, but anarchism's historical commitment to progress was based in a historical analysis of the trend towards it. The fact that pan-secessionism even seems like a potential strategy speaks to the level of absurdity and contradiction in contemporary society, but anarchists need to advance the critique, not hitch themselves onto a retreat from a revolutionary situation into any number of reactionary enclaves. Maybe the NAs are nicer people than they have seemed to me in debate, but they still seem to be headed in the opposite direction from the historical mainstream of anarchism.

You invoked an old post of mine, which ran, in part:

It's the sort of thing you feel stupid saying out loud, but, once the bail is raised for protestors, we need to figure out how to bail each other out, of stupid jobs we hate, that only prop up a system that feeds off us. Once the pepper spray burns have been treated, we need to figure out how to provide for one another's daily health needs. After we feed the homeless, we have to tackle how we feed one another, globally, without being forced to take part in a food economy that depends of disrupting local agriculture and profiting while people starve. Once we reclaim the stolen pamphlets, we need to finish the work of making sure our written heritage is never "out of print" and beyond the reach of everyone. The things that stand between us and our own institutions would probably not withstand any sort of concerted assault, unlike the riot police lines guarding worthless functionaries and would-be despots, and they'll have to come up with new offenses if they want to beat us up for trading with one another, educating one another, supporting one another.

When I posted about a general freeing of "political prisoners," I was talking about people withdrawing participation from authoritarian institutions specifically to expand our individual options, a "coming out" (in the spirit of the old anarchist come-outers, but with some new resonances undoubtedly) into a broader world, not a retreat into an enclave. The latter kind of secession seems like a lose-lose proposition to me, for the reasons that William Gillis just laid out on his blog, but also because it seems to me that the decentralization of authority is the logical next step for authority.

Francois-

Over my head. Could you please explain the reference in the above image?

lol objectivist grizzly bears

You'd have to watch the Colbert Report to get it, I guess.