Loyalists to the Corporatocracy

“You know, Ron Paul’s followers are not party regulars. He’s not a party regular. He really has these very, very impassioned followers. All four of our children are huge Ron Paul followers." -- Suzy Welch

Jack Welch, retired CEO of General Electric, and his wife Suzy, former editor-in-chief of the Harvard Business Review, have co-authored their first column for Reuters, titled "Ron Paul and the pink slip that could decide the election." During an interview this morning on CNN, Suzy let slip the little truth bomb quoted above, which led to this Tireless Agorist's commentary.

In this excerpt from that column, they demonstrate a superficial awareness of the symptoms of the political malaise infecting the country that leads them, unfortunately, to an incorrect diagnosis of the cure.

"But Paul is not really the GOP’s problem. It’s his followers, perhaps as much as 15 percent of the general electorate, many of them young, vocal and highly energized. Like Paul himself, they’re not exactly party regulars. No, Paul and his followers promise to be a lot like that fired employee who, if “handled” incorrectly at farewell, will make it his life’s work to, if not bring your organization down, at least show you how very wrong you were to cut the cord."

A very astute observation, as far as it goes. Unwisely, however, they go on to analyze the battle between the Republican wing of the political establishment and the movement toward increased personal liberty, with Ron Paul as its chief proponent, as similar to the political battle between Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden four years ago -- leading to this totally erroneous summation:

The Largest Libertarian Society in History

While the near-disaster of SOPA and PIPA is still fresh on everyone's mind, it strikes this Tireless Agorist as an ideal opportunity to discuss the largest libertarian society in history. The society that brought the SOPA and PIPA legislation to a halt and that brought you to read this essay. The society of the Internet.

As an agorist, and consequentially a libertarian, one of the things I find most interesting is the myopia among some of the most active members of the Internet society. These are the people who surf effortlessly through the web in pursuit of arcane information, seek out their own voluntary associations among like-minded peers, purchase products from all corners of the globe, and immediately and voluntarily band together to protect their communities from damage or destruction by trolls, spammers and other lowlifes when they sense that the peace is threatened. Such activities are almost second-nature in the more civilized corners of the Net.

Indeed, when these Netizens saw their freedom under attack by a territorial government with no real understanding of the miraculous society they inhabit, they almost immediately swarmed together in an officially uncoordinated but massive protest against the very government that claimed it was working to protect them. And they resoundingly won the battle, if not yet the war.

Yet the same people who defeated the government's attack through voluntary action express doubt about the efficacy, fairness, and capability of the free market and the core concepts of a libertarian society. Immersed daily in the largest, most anonymous, most libertarian society ever to exist, they fail to recognize it for the miracle that it is, or to recognize the compelling forces that make it work.

Sweet Sixteen Circumnavigation

Sixteen-year-old Laura Dekker docked in St. Maarten on Saturday, ending her year-long solo voyage around the world aboard her 38-feet sailboat, "Guppy." Her story first came to international intention in the fall of 2009, after the Dutch Child Welfare Office became involved. A family court decision placed her in shared parental custody with the Council for Child Care, who stopped her departure. Nasty legal battles ensued. Finally, after a year of bitter and expensive legal battles, the Dutch court ended her supervision. She set sail two weeks later. After a shakedown cruise to Gibralter, she sat off on her circumnavigation on August 21, 2010.

Her summation of the state's interference? "They thought it was dangerous. Well, everywhere is dangerous. They don't sail and they don't know what boats are, and they are scared of them."

Wiser words were perhaps never spoken by a 14-year-old.

This was not a non-stop, reckless assault on the oceans of the world. She laid over in the Canary Islands for several weeks to avoid hurricane season, and even flew home for a visit at one point. The trip involved about a year of travel over the 17-month period.

My wife and I were live-aboard sailors for several years, and before health concerns derailed our plans, we intended to spend our retirement in a similar pursuit, albeit on a more leisurely schedule. The accuracy of Laura's summation is even more apparent when one fully understands what such a circumnavigation entails.

He's Catchin' On, I'm Tellin' Ya!

Ron Paul's 2008 campaign was fundamentally educational. As much as a dedicated core wanted it to be about winning the election, the things it takes to put a candidate in the White House just weren't there. What began as an educational campaign exploded into a movement, with grassroots support far beyond what the official campaign was prepared to utilize.

The official campaign staff were for the most part tackling their first national campaign. Infrastructure had to be hastily built. A ragtag army of volunteers proved more interested in throwing snowballs at Sean Hannity and standing on streetcorners waving signs than in doing the hard work it takes to turn the ship of state in a new and unprecedented direction. Even the advertising had the same overly-hasty, amateurish quality.

No More!

This post title springs from one example of the shortcomings of the 2008 campaign. If you hang with this Tireless Agorist to the end, I'll throw in a viewing, and a comparison to today's campaign, as a reward.

Ron Paul's Favorite Recipes

The Washington Wire reported Friday on one of the homier touches of Ron Paul's campaign: a recipe book long maintained and produced for his congressional district by his wife of 55 years, Carol. It's proven to be the most popular piece of literature on the campaign trail. Not surprising, really, as it contains some real substance, unlike the low-calorie fluff generally served up in campaign literature.

Today, The Wire followed up with Ron's favorite recipe from the cookbook, the one for chocolate chip cookies. Carol has been making these for Ron since their college days, so keep this handy, use it regularly, and perhaps you too can one day grow up to run for President.

An important warning: Mix judicious use of this recipe with 5-mile walks every morning and 10-mile bike rides every afternoon as Ron does, or you'll look more like Newt Gingrich than Ron Paul on the campaign trail.

On Law and Sausages - SOPA, PIPA and Cronyism

Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made. - John Godfrey Saxe

The recent SOPA/PIPA legislation, a blatant assault on the First Amendment spawned by the entertainment industry and almost enabled by their political lapdogs, triggered a massive protest against crony capitalism unlike anything seen in recent times. Dozens of internet icons and thousands of smaller sites either shut down completely or made the legislation a focus for the day.

One of the most interesting spin-offs, from a personal perspective, was a long, detailed and nuanced examination of the entire issue on what I consider the premier political discussion board on the Internet, the Politics and Current Events forum at Absolute Write. Not surprisingly, as a writer's forum the population skews considerably toward the left side of the political spectrum, and government legislation is generally well-received. Not in this case, though. Opinion was overwhelmingly against these acts, which gives me much hope for the future.

This Tireless Agorist could hardly be considered a proper shill for my cause if I didn't recycle that discussion to butress my case for severely-limited government. Thus this essay.

Voting as a Faithless Act

I spent my earliest years, unwisely, voting as an act of faith. Faith that the system worked, that the Democrats and Republicans chose the best among them as candidates to lead us. Faith that if I chose one of those two parties' candidates to lead, America would continue to advance in freedom and in opportunity for every citizen. Faith that all I had to do was vote and the wise men in charge would take care of everything else.

No More!

In Defense of SOPA/PIPA

I've got nothing.

Write, call, march in the streets. Pray if that works for you.

Contact information available at Wikipedia and countless other locations.

It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds. - Samuel Adams

An Open Letter to Gary Johnson

I hate to say it, but I think there's a good chance your campaign is already doomed.

There's a growing insurgency against the political machine in this country. People are tired of being told what to do, and they're standing up and saying:

No More!

This movement was triggered in large part by one man, and a few thousand dedicated volunteers who willingly committed their time and their money to efforts that they freely chose; drawing attention to a candidate the media had relegated to invisibility, much like you are being treated now.

Those few volunteers, inspired by a message of freedom, took it upon themselves to bring that message to the forefront of political discourse, and to bring the one candidate delivering that message to the forefront of the presidential race. He could not have done it alone, with a conventional top-down approach to running a campaign. "Freedom is popular," he declared, and he walked the walk by granting his volunteers that freedom. His only admonishment was "Anything that's Peaceful," echoing the title of the famous libertarian work by Leonard Reed.

Defining the One Percent

The Tea Party movement and the Occupy movement both have some things right; but they also have some things wrong, at least when viewed from the perspective of this Tireless Agorist.

First let's find some common ground between the Tea Party and Occupy movements, as expressed in this diagram.



While Tea Partiers rail against big government, and Occupiers rail against big business, they both often fail to consider that area in the middle, that shows that big government and big business work together.

What this illustrates, above all, is that the One Percent is mostly successful at spinning a narrative to divide us. Tea Partiers recognize that big government gets in the way of the free market, over-regulating production, over-taxing the productive, and ignoring the limits placed on their behavior by reinterpreting the Constitution as they see fit. Occupiers recognize that big business has run amok, wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of the few, and social programs created with good intentions regularly fail to meet their promised goals. Both groups recognize that taking from Main Street to bail out Wall Street has serious implications for the long-term health of our society.

What they both often fail to recognize is why these things are the way they are.