Tag Archives | Resistance Is Not Futile

Double Standard

A picture like this could of course be made for libertarians too – showing libertarians with tax-funded educations walking on tax-funded streets, contacting each other via government postal monopoly, paying for their lunches with federally issued currency, etc.

Libertarians understand why that would be a silly argument against anti-government protestors. They really should understand why the parallel argument against anti-corporate protestors is equally silly.


Let the Work of Government Begin

Britain’s current PM came to power wrapping himself in anti-big-government rhetoric. No surprise that once in power he talks a bit differently:

In an emergency meeting of the House of Commons, David Cameron indicated that the police could be given powers to shut down social networks during times of unrest, and widen officers’ remit to compel people to remove face coverings.

Adam Sutler in V FOR VENDETTA

Remember how the Western political establishment spoke in a unified voice of condemnation when governments in Egypt and Iran shut down social media networks like Twitter in an attempt to prevent protestors from coordinating? Double standard, anyone?

“This is a time for our country to pull together,” said Cameron, praising those who had taken to the streets to defend their communities from thugs.

Cameron’s praise for those who “had taken to the streets to defend their communities from thugs” seems a bit selective. After all, the riots began as protests against murderous thugs in police uniforms; but I doubt that Cameron meant to be praising the protestors – or encouraging his subjects to take to the streets to defend free communication against Cameron’s own thuggish plans for censorship.


Open Source Government

Kevin Carson is working on a fourth book! What he stresses is “a very rough draft” is available online here; it looks fascinating, as usual. Death Star expolosion Its topic is “the potential for networked organization to constrain the exercise of power by large, hierarchical institutions in a way that once required the countervailing power of other large, hierarchical institutions.”

(I guess releasing ongoing drafts of a work on open source is a way of achieving unity of medium and message.)


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