Month: April 2018

By Benjamin Welton Many doomsayers wrote President Donald Trump’s political epitaph on April 14, when a coalition of American, British, and French warships and aircraft bombed Syria in response to a chemical attack in the city of Douma. Pro- and anti-Trumpers alike poured forth word salads about how the man who promised to end America’s never-ending wars in the Muslim world was dragging the United States into the Syrian Civil War. So far, those fears seem overblown. The Pentagon reports that a total of 105 missiles were deployed over Syria by the Western powers, with most hitting virtually abandoned military research centers in the cities of Damascus and Homs. The Syrian government, which is not averse to inflating statistics, reported that, at best, nine people were injured during the strike. There is even an ongoing argument about whether or not President Bashar al-Assad’s military managed to shoot down several American missiles. More importantly, no Russians have been listed among the wounded, thus bypassing the thorny issue of a Russian response to the strike. It appears that conservatives, liberals, and all colors beyond the political pale gnashed their teeth over very little. Trump’s decision to bomb Syria will not stop President Bashar al-Assad from winning the war. Indeed, some pundits have even suggested that the Syrian strike was not truly aimed at Assad, but rather at North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Michael Malice, who reported on his journey inside of North Korea in his 2014 book Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Biography of Kim Jong-il, told Breitbart that he believes President Trump is playing the “bad cop” to China’s “good cop.” By cultivating a reputation as a loose cannon, President Trump is allowing China to whisper in North Korea’s ear something along the lines of “Reform your state along our guidelines before that crazy Yankee decides to bomb you.” While President Trump’s second foray into the Syrian quagmire is not the neoconservative invasion that National Security adviser John Bolton apparently wanted, it still raises the specter of future bombing runs. The case will be made here that: A complete removal of all American ground forces from Syria and cessation of bombing campaigns is, without question, the best foreign policy option at this point, and Supporting Bashar al-Assad would be a lesser evil than supporting the Syrian rebels. The US Intervention is Based on Supposition The stated reason for the April 14 airstrike is the same as for the April 7, 2017 airstrike: to punish the Assad regime for using chemical weapons on its own people. But this begs the question: why would Assad use chemical weapons when he is winning the war? President Assad is no moron when it comes to geopolitics, so he is quite aware that the West feels obligated to respond to every chemical or biological attack, regardless of where the attack occurs. Therefore, why would Assad willingly jeopardize his military victory by inviting foreign intervention? There is also the fact that no impartial investigators have conclusively proven that Assad’s forces used chemical weapons in Douma on April 7. Dr. Assim Rahaibani, a medical doctor on the ground in Douma, came to the conclusion that the victims of the attack had actually been hit with conventional artillery, not chemical weapons. He noted that the patients he saw were suffering from hypoxia, a type of oxygen loss that is usually the result of inhaling large quantities of building dust. It is also telling that journalist Robert Fisk of The Independent recorded Dr. Rahaibani saying that the first people to accuse Assad of using gas were the “White Helmets”. Despite a completely naïve and disgustingly overwrought documentary (which won an Academy Award, thanks in no small part to the global liberalism of Hollywood), the “White Helmets” of the Syria Civil Defense have ties to the jihadist militias currently fighting the Assad regime. Given this, it would not be outside the realm of possibility for the “White Helmets” to either exploit a conventional attack or completely fabricate one in order to draw the West into attacking Assad. Read the entire article at ZerothPosition.com

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Source: Reece Liberty.Me – On American Intervention in Syria

A significant portion of my work consists of critiquing arguments, decisions, and statements made by other people. But sometimes, the lens of examination is best turned inward to correct one’s own missteps. Such is the case for an article I wrote last year about the nature of degenerate behavior. In that article, I started with the dictionary definition of degeneracy as “sexual perversion” and degenerate as “having declined or become less specialized (as in nature, character, structure, or function) from an ancestral or former state”, “having sunk to a lower and usually corrupt and vicious state”, “one degraded from the normal moral standard”, and “having low moral standards; not honest, proper, or good”. From this, I concluded that degeneracy is “that which is not conducive to civilization.” In retrospect, I failed to account for the possibility that a civilization itself could be degenerate. Let us explore this possibility now. Defining Terms Though dictionaries are rarely capable of providing the full understanding of a word, they are an excellent place to start. Merriam-Webster defines civilization as “a relatively high level of cultural and technological development; specifically the stage of cultural development at which writing and the keeping of written records is attained”, “the culture characteristic of a particular time or place”, “the process of becoming civilized”, “refinement of thought, manners, or taste”, and “a situation of urban comfort”. ‘Civilized‘ is taken to mean “characterized by taste, refinement, or restraint”. Our task, then, is to contemplate how a civilization may be built upon a degenerate foundation. The Principle of Loss In a recent article published at Social Matter, Jérôme Bernard Grenouille contemplates the ideas of the left-wing French intellectual Georges Bataille (1897–1962), particularly his notions of expenditure, loss, and sacrifice. Bataille considers how ruling classes in pre-modern times spent fortunes on “the production of sacred things” that would serve as a rallying point for a culture through the creation and reinforcement of non-economic, immaterial, spiritual values. He criticizes modern ruling classes for engaging in what would now be called political autism; earlier, Edmund Burke denounced the same as “sophisters, economists, and calculators.” This is a valid concern; as Grenouille writes, “Human existence cannot be merely explained by production and conservation. There are far more elusive pursuits and practices in place in all human societies. These practices may be elevated, or truly crass and depraved but they nevertheless diverge from the naive principles of utility.” Read the entire article at ZerothPosition.com

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Source: Reece Liberty.Me – On Degeneracy, Loss, and Civilization

By Insula Qui Author’s note: The main themes of this series are further expounded upon in my book Anarcho-Monarchism, which you can buy here. Introduction The first eight parts of this series demonstrated that libertarian governance is both necessary and desirable, explained how it ought to be structured, and showed that statism is inferior to libertarian statecraft. The next task, which will occupy the remainder of this series, is to explore the nature of wise statecraft. The principles laid out here will apply to all statecraft, whether done on an individual, collective, or even statist level. However, these principles of statecraft use libertarianism in a way that is not blindly dismissive of statecraft. This can be thought of as the libertarian theory of efficient property management. Of course, if profit maximization would impose a cost on some person, that cost should eventually be internalized. If anyone else has to subsidize personal profit maximization, then social profit is not maximized. By applying libertarian theory, we have already eliminated the main concern that profit maximization will be anti-social. Imposing costs is contradictory to libertarianism, thus libertarianism can never consistently be anti-social. The Good Effects There are four major reasons why social trust is desirable. First, social trust strengthens property rights as property-oriented norms develop. Second, trust funds social activity and community spaces. The only way property can be managed in the social realm is if the managers have trust with the community. Without trust, any non-profit endeavor is made nearly impossible and the optimal size of all organization is greatly reduced. All social and community interaction is not quantifiable in material terms, as such it cannot simply use the logic of the marketplace for material goods. Third, trust lowers transaction costs, as transactions attain a less stringent necessity for verification while scams and fraudulence become less of a concern. Fourth, trust inherently creates opportunity as high-trust social networks lend themselves to an easier process of allocating resources. These features of trust are essential for creating and maintaining a society that can actually function and compete with other societies, but this warrants further explanation. It is imperative to establish how societies can create trust and then profit from it. Property Rights Within a society that has higher levels of trust, people also have a higher degree of social responsibility. Social trust means that each person can be relied on and all people are expected to function within society, with minimal exceptions. When people are expected to refrain from value-destructive behavior, they are expected to refrain from lessening the value of all property, regardless of who owns it. The most egregious violation of the principle of social responsibility is the violation of property rights, especially the ultimate property right within one’s own body. When property rights are threatened, the necessary result is a general reduction in profits because theft is a complete social loss. There are two mechanisms by which social trust will necessarily reduce theft. First, when all people are expected to take care of themselves and social attitudes are conducive to this, there will be a significant reduction in people who are relegated to poverty and degenerate behavior. When people retain their cognitive abilities and have no need to steal, they rarely do so. Second, when people trust each other, they will reciprocate property rights. This is a main distinction between property rights in first-world versus third-world countries. In many third-world countries, property itself is met with envy. Low social trust leads people to believe that prosperity is built from poverty, that property is only held at the expense of everyone else. This lack of trust and reciprocity results in property being under constant attack. This reduces profits and creates general social stagnation. Read the entire article at ZerothPosition.com

The post On Libertarianism and Statecraft, Part IX: Trust appeared first on The Zeroth Position.

Source: Reece Liberty.Me – On Libertarianism and Statecraft, Part IX: Trust