(Let me push Tyler away from the keyboard...fortunately he seems to be most active when I am asleep...)
If I pay my taxes, aren't I to some extent funding the war effort?
Of course, one could make the argument "If I don't pay I'll go to jail"...well the easy reply is "you should go to jail or move to another country rather than pay your taxes to fuck over other countries and their people."
Clearly, the September 11th 'Pilots' (are you still called a pilot if you never felt the need to learn how to land a plane?) believed rather firmly that regular US citizens -are- responsible for the actions of their government. And indeed, it might be argued that our duty as moral humans is to overthrow or attempt to undermine a regime from which we (well, some of us) clearly benefit, but which does so at the expense of others. Indeed, don't we Americans often flippantly say "They should overthrow their government..."?
(Tyler clearly believes this...somehow, when he gets talking like this he seems ever more 'real', and that's when he starts yammering about being the 'real' Tyler Durden, whatever the hell that means.)
Is peaceful change, etc... possible? I'd like to think so. However, there may come a point where "peaceful solution" is really just a lazy dream designed to permit us to ignore our responsibility...
There may be a third option, of which crypto is a part. This is more re-evolutionary in that it represents slow steps towards change that can possibly be resisted for a short while but in the long run demands that resistors step out of the way or get squashed. In this sense, Crypto is 'peaceful' as long as its not resisted too strongly. It itself (as opposed to what it carries) becomes some form of "armament" only by the power of the resistors. Perhaps, then, working on the proliferation of such tools is partly enough to exonerate one from responsibility for what 'we' are doing overseas.
-Jack
From: Tim May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Foreign adventures and economic imperialism Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 11:54:55 -0800
On Thursday, April 3, 2003, at 11:37 AM, Kevin S. Van Horn wrote:
Tyler Durden wrote:
As far as I can tell, we've been actively meddling in foreign governments since the early 1950s.
I haven't been; have you? If not, then you shouldn't use the term "we".
One of the mind games that state worshippers play on the populace is to get them to identify with the state -- and so emotionally defend its foreign adventures -- through the misuse of "we" when they really mean "the government."
Exactly.
(I don't claim to be perfect--there are times when I have used the words "we" and "our" in connection with the United States. But I've also used "we" and "our" in terms of what the Founders very obviously meant, in contrast to what later rulers like Lincoln, Roosevelt, and the rulers of the past 50 years have claimed to represent.)
One of the clearest statements of what libertarians usually support came from P.J. O'Rourke when he put it this way: "Would you kill your grandmother for this?"
Meaning, anytime a law or a foreign involvement is contemplated, ask oneself whether the law is just enough to warrant killing someone close to you for it. The implications for the vast number of bullshit laws we have in the U.S. (and worse in most parts of Europe) are clear, I think.
As for foreign wars, I don't support having tax collectors take my money (substantial amounts of it, but that's another topic) and use it to protect oil company interests or to engage in humanitarian efforts. If my neighbor wishes to contribute to the Ruwandans or the Iraqi Liberation Front, he is welcome to.
(Modulo the fact that Americans are no longer to fund the charities of their choosing, as a few hundred citizens in indefininate detention can attest to, were they able to speak to lawyers or others.)
--Tim May
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