Author: Butler Shaffer

If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.  – Emma Goldman I awoke on election day at about the same time that Boobus and his fellow robots were beginning their lockstep march to voting facilities in eastern states. I wondered how many were humming the statist mantra “it-doesn’t-matter-who-you-vote-for-just-vote” as they strutted to their reward of an “I voted” sticker to wear on their shirts or jackets. Does this foolish slogan continue to have any life within it? My question was soon answered when I read an online editorial from a newspaper for whom I began delivering papers when I was … Continue reading →

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The more we exist outside the system, the more creative we are. – Beatrice Wood News that the Ecuadorian embassy in London cut off Wikileaks’ access to the Internet is troubling, principally because of the question marks left as to Julian Assange’s safety in England. Fears that Wikileaks might have been put out of business – particularly at a time when it was making public the dark email secrets the Clinton mob was desirous of keeping hidden – were eased by a later report that Wikileaks is now operating under contingency plans. Knowing that his organization was a threat to … Continue reading →

The post The Dustbin of Fallen Civilizations and Empires appeared first on LewRockwell.

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible. – Voltaire No sentence better summarizes the social plight we humans face than that penned by Gregory Bateson: “the major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think.”  As our centrally-directed, vertically-structured systems of institutionally-imposed order continue to reveal their destructive character, thoughtful minds are becoming increasingly aware that the rest of the universe functions in a quite orderly fashion, without the conscious design of political agencies, academicians, special interest-directed “experts,” and other self-appointed “authorities” over their fellow humans. To the … Continue reading →

The post It’s Fundamentally Anti-Human appeared first on LewRockwell.

[This article is from a talk I gave on July 31, 2016, at the seventh annual “Capitalism and Morality” conference held in Vancouver, B.C. Sponsored by Jayant Bhandari – a very bright, energetic libertarian – the conference brings together speakers and participants interested in exploring the deeper implications of liberty, private property, and free markets.] To think that I attempted to force the reason and conscience of thousands of men into one mould and I cannot make two clocks agree. – Emperor Charles V Dating back at least to the time of Plato, most of us have been conditioned in the mindset … Continue reading →

The post We Need Anarchy appeared first on LewRockwell.

    If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers.  – Thomas Pynchon Human understanding is premised upon a continuing refinement in the quality of questions we bring to any subject matter. If our distant ancestors knew little more about their physical world than the proposition that “some things fall and hurt us,” their ability to safely function in the world might have been insufficient to sustain their lives. After centuries of trying to explain such occurrences by reciting such maxims as that things fall to their natural level in the world, our ancestors … Continue reading →

The post Thought Control appeared first on LewRockwell.

No one ever heard of the truth being enforced by law. Whenever the secular arm is called in to sustain an idea, whether new or old, it is always a bad idea, and not infrequently it is downright idiotic. . ~ H.L. Mencken Those with ambitions for power over their fellow humans continue to speak of the threats of “climate change” and “global warming” as though they were expressing revealed truths. Religious dogmas can find their roots in scientific as well as theological thinking. Questioning either the “intelligent design” or “big bang” explanations for the origins of the universe can … Continue reading →

The post When the State Enforces an Idea, Doubt It appeared first on LewRockwell.

Tom DiLorenzo’s recent blog about the outbreak of brain-lock on the Indiana University campus is but the latest example of a syndrome so widespread that other instances are hard to mention because they would take up more blog space than Lew could accommodate. I am reminded of the polio epidemic that was so devastating in my youth; there were no identifiable causes against which parents could take protection. At that time, local swimming pools, school playgrounds, parks, or other gathering places, were not found to be attractors for the virus. A child could be infected, his or her arms, legs, … Continue reading →

The post Infantile Paralysis on Campus appeared first on LewRockwell.

      Even the most piddling life is of momentous consequence to its owner.                                – James Wolcott Nowhere is the insanity of the war system more evident than in the dead and broken bodies, along with the emotionally demolished souls, of those who have been sacrificed to it. We often see images of the psychopathic nature of warfare (e.g., the famous photo of a screaming, naked young Vietnamese girl running from a napalm attack in 1972, or the video of an American helicopter gunship machine-gunning a dozen Iraqi civilians, including two Reuters’ journalists). More often, what we do not … Continue reading →

The post When the Uniformed Victims Come Home appeared first on LewRockwell.

My interest in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol began one Christmas eve when, as a small child, my parents turned on network radio to listen to what, even then, had become a classic Christmas eve festivity: Lionel Barrymore’s presentation of the Dickens story. Radio was a medium that required the imagination to paint scenes far more colorful, and to concoct monsters far scarier, than anything motion pictures or television have ever been able to present. With radio, the listener was the stage designer, costumer, and location director. In later years, I watched Alistair Sim’s movie version of the story – … Continue reading →

The post The Persecuted Businessman appeared first on LewRockwell.

It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a “dismal science.” But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance. . – Murray Rothbard . Imagine that your Uncle Willie has, for the past twenty years, indulged in the habit of drinking a quart of Scotch each day. He now suffers from what any competent doctor, after numerous tests, recognizes as cirrhosis of the liver. His doctor informs him that a … Continue reading →

I received an e-mail from Congresswoman Diane Russell (D-Maine) urging me to sign a petition opposing Republican efforts to cut government support for Planned Parenthood. “STOP the war on women and Planned Parenthood,” she intoned. “Don’t cut a dime in federal funding for Planned Parenthood.” This e-mail was followed by one from the “liberal” organization, MoveOn, asking me to contribute money to its efforts to resist the “anti-choice militants” who seek to take away this “vital women’s health resource.” There are so many ways for intelligent minds to respond not only to the crude reasoning of these appeals, but to … Continue reading →

Yes, and so are all the other presidential candidates; and all the other politicians; and all political parties; and all political systems! Throughout human history, and regardless of the label under which any have operated, every political system has been premised on the arrogated authority to preempt decision making over the lives and property interests of individuals. This is the implicit meaning of “eminent domain”: the state is the ultimate owner of all within its boundaries. In this sense, King George III was a socialist, as were the colonials who became the “Founding Fathers” and expelled the British (if you … Continue reading →

If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers. – Thomas Pynchon A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him. – Ezra Pound The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision declaring that the right of gays and lesbians to marry is mandated by the Constitution, has brought responses that reflect how conditioned most people’s minds are to the practice of state-contrived conflicts. The power of the state depends upon conflicts and, therefore, state officials endeavor to create bogeymen, wars, and other fear-objects with which to mesmerize the Boobeoisie into … Continue reading →

Imagine a dystopian future in which the life-expectancy of human beings has plummeted from about 70-80 years to around 20 years. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, life expectations at one’s birth averaged 30-35 years, with the death rate among children under the age of five reaching almost 75% by the mid-18th century. During the Industrial Revolution, the population in England sharply increased, leading many to wonder as to the causes. As the deaths of children decreased to just under 32% in the early 19th century, it became evident to intelligent minds that there might be a correlation between the liberty … Continue reading →

Art is individualism, and individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force. Therein lies its immense value For what it seeks to disturb is monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine. . – Oscar Wilde For untold centuries, mankind has experimented with plant and animal life in an effort to produce organisms that might prove beneficial not only for human survival, but just for living well.  Playing around with various grasses, our ancient ancestors produced grains that provided alternative forms of food. The grafting of tissues from one … Continue reading →