Nobody's Life, Liberty or Property...

"...Is safe while congress is in session."

Forwarded to me with the request that I pass it on. Which I surely will do.

http://blog.absolutearts.com/

From: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com
Subject: "Promoting" Orphan Works
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 18:28:51 -0400

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

Yesterday ( Thurs. Mar. 13, 08) the House subcommittee on Intellectual
Property held their first hearing on new Orphan Works legislation.
Note the title:

"Hearing on Promoting the Use of Orphan Works: Balancing the Interests
of Copyright Owners and Users"

http://judiciary.house.gov/oversight.aspx?ID=427
Balance, however doesn't seem to be part of the Orphan Works
juggernaut. Indeed, after this hearing, we can no longer assume that
the U.S. Copyright Office is an advocate for the protection of
creators' rights. As they wrote on page 14 of their original Orphan
Works Report:

"If our recommendation resolves users' concerns in a satisfactory way,
it will likely be a comprehensive solution to the orphan works
situation." (our emphasis)

But how can any copyright law be "comprehensive" if it makes millions
of copyrights, no matter how valuable, available to users, no matter
how worthy, under a system that would introduce permanent uncertainty
into the business lives of creators?

Private Sector Registries

Since the last bill died in committee in 2006, the advocates of this
legislation have promoted the creation of private commercial
registries. On January 29, 2007, a lead attorney for the Copyright
Office warned us that under their plan any work not registered with a
private sector registry would be a potential orphan from the moment it
was created.

This means you would not only have to register your published work,
but also:

— Every sketch or note on every page of every sketchbook;
— Every sketch you send to every client;
— Every photograph you take anywhere, anytime, including family
photos, home videos, etc.;
— Every letter, email, etc., professional, personal or private.

This Would End Passive Copyright Protection: Under existing law the
total creative output of any "creator" receives passive copyright
protection from the moment you create it. This covers everything from
the published work of professional artists to the unpublished diaries,
letters and family photos of the average citizen.

But under the Orphan Works proposal, none of this material would be
covered unless the creator took active steps to register and maintain
coverage with a commercial registry. Failure to do so would "signal"
to infringers that you have no interest in protecting the work.

The Registration Paradox: By conceding that their proposals would make
potential orphans of any unregistered works, the Copyright Office
proposals would lead to a registration paradox: In order to "protect"
work from exposure to infringement, creators would have to expose it
on a publicly searchable registry. This would:

— Expose creative work to plagiarists and derivative abusers;
— Expose trade secrets and unused sketches to competitors;
— Expose unpublished and private correspondence to the public on the
Orwellian premise that you must expose it to "protect" it.

Yet registries will not be able to monitor infringements nor enforce
copyright compliance. Even after you've shelled out "protection money"
to a commercial registry to register hundreds of thousands of works,
you still won't be protected. A registry would do nothing more than
give you a piece of paper. You would still have to monitor
infringements - which can occur anytime anywhere in the world; then
embark on an uncertain quest to find the infringer, file a case in
Federal court, then prove that the infringer has removed your name or
other identifying information from your work. Meanwhile all the
infringer will have to do is say there was no such information on the
work when he found it and assert an orphan works defense. This will be
the end result of trying to "resolve the users' concerns" at the
expense of time-tested copyright law.

Coerced registration violates the spirit and letter of international
copyright law and copyright-related treaties. And because this bill
would effectively eliminate the passive copyright protection afforded
personal correspondence, family photos, etc. it would tear one more
slender thread of privacy protection from the fabric of fundamental
rights we currently take for granted.

We urge Congress to carefully reconsider the unintended consequences
of this radical copyright proposal.

— Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner, for the Board of the Illustrators'
Partnership

Please post or forward this email in its entirety to any interested party
For additional information about Orphan Works developments, go to the
IPA Orphan Works Resource Page for Artists
www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00185

I suggest that you contact your representatives immediately with your concerns about this matter. This is the worst sort of "privatization," where a real and useful service is replaced by a money-making scheme that will do less, cost far more, and bury every individual and small business that has any intellectual property under a snowstorm of probably quite useless paperwork, while giving all the "passive compliance" advantages to potential data thieves.

Under this law, Pepsi could replicate Coke and every single frame from every single film will have to be individually protected - for a fee.

Frankly, I think the very idea is obviously corrupt. Certainly it is practically impossible for individual creators or small businesses to adequately protect their works - since there's no possible way for them to afford to prosecute offenders. Recovery, you see, is capped.

The obvious remedy would be for the US entertainment industry to relocate north or south of the border, where the Berne Copyright Convention would still apply, and US commercial and constitutional law would require it's enforcement. Same for small creators, who could incorporate in Canada, Mexico, or anywhere else with an online application form.

And of course, at that point, well, actual relocation seems probable - given the very portability of the digital arts themselves and the communications capability of the web. For myself, I could live and work anywhere with a high-speed internet connection, and I'm starting to become rather indifferent to patriotic appeals, considering the rising cost of patriotism these days.

I would find it much easier to be patriotic about a homeland in which my home and livelihood were actually secured by my taxes, rather than made available to the highest bidder by people my tax dollars pay for.

From the Department of I Told You So - Looking back on 9/11

I wrote this @ 2001-09-19 18:11:00 in a LiveJournal group. Every year or so, I go back and re-read it, at times wondering why I've ever bothered writing anything more, considering all I've achieved in writing them. But then someone has to write them. And I haven't had anything better to do.

This time around I realized that it was at least time to revisit, republish, correct a few omitted words, fix grammatical errors, put it into context - and spell check!

I am uncomfortable with the idea of my words having lasting meaning, and given the topic I was writing on, even more uncomfortable with the idea than I might otherwise be. But I'm starting to face the fact that if these particular words do or do not, some words saying something like them must be uttered for any of the crap we have all been through to make sense, and to honor those who didn't make it all the way through.

Still I cannot escape the idea that I was entirely too correct for my comfort, and all the more so by how uncommon that viewpoint was, outside of those opposed to all violence for any reason.

And yet, I go back to this piece, I see what was clear to me a mere eight days after 9/11 - and I wonder where all the professional, paid pundits, where all the trained journalists, where all those we trust to have better trained and more restrained reactions than the ordinary run of persons were.

I'm gratified that out of so many, I was one of the few to be this correct - until I stop to think about what I was correct about, and how little intelligence, moral courage and will on the part of so very many people at so very many different choke-points could have made me seem utterly hysterical in retrospect. It's not at all difficult to see how those who have a better opinion of their fellow man could have been led astray.

How much I wish I could look back on my work and see how utterly wrong I was, and how depressingly ironic it is that those who have been as wrong as I wish I had been - are better paid the more incorrect they have been.

But then, that seeming irony also explains a great deal. We all trust that those who have the smarts, the insight and the access to know better will actually pass on their insights, instead of saying the complete opposite in return for large packages of unmarked bills.

And, lest that be seen as slander, let me say that it's a far more charitable assumption than the presumption that people such as O'Reilly, Malkin, Coulter and Savage are speaking to us out of sincere conviction.

Since, well, when you make provably untrue statements or unprovable statements with the assertion they are factual, you are either lying, or deluded. Don't much matter which, really; though I happen to think that being a knowing, paid liar might just be a little easier to live with than having been a useful, sincerely deluded tool - all untraceable bearer bonds aside.

I'm not complaining. I could conceivably have chosen to roll that way, and it was damn clear at the time there was no profit at all to be had in being reasonable.

But, well, I'm me, and that's how I am. Every once in a while sheer perversity ends up putting you on the right side, in retrospect. That doesn't mean that it wasn't the result of being naturally perverse. It was, and is a tragedy that any sort of perversity could shake out this way at all - much less to this degree.

The Grand Old Flag and all that.
I'm having an aspy moment. In fact, I've been having an aspy moment ever since the rubble of the World Trade Center stopped tumbling.

I'm tying to figure out how posting flags on every available surface and hanging them from every crossbar, antenna and flagpole is supposed to achieve anything.

It sure appears that everyone is convinced it will, and anywhere will do. Around Reno, someone has figured out that you can print flags out with your computer, and someone slapped one on the apartment's dumpster.

I think that's in very surreal taste.

I'm completely baffled by the consensus that I should be emotionally devastated by the deaths of so many people and the blow to our national prestige.

Well I'm an aspy who's spent a lot of time out of the country. I'm not emotionally affected... and I assure you, rumors of our national prestige have been wildly exaggerated!

That shouldn't be a shocking revelation. If we were universally loved and respected, people wouldn't be diving airliners into our landmark architecture.

You don't see people dive-bombing Canada. Of all the aspects of American Culture that the Taliban and other funnymentalist Islamic splinters revile, Canada is every bit as gleefully guilty. Hell, it's not even illegal for women to go topless in public in Canada, in the aftermath of a Charter of Rights ruling. You can just see Ayatollah eyeballs bleeding at that concept. And in terms of enforcing social conformity and family values on the general population - well, Canada is utterly delinquent, much to the impotent frustration of the DEA.

Yep, the interdiction of that Demon Weed, Marijuana is not exactly a high priority of Canadian police agencies. And that sort of lax response to moral turpitude is something that convinces the self-righteous that God or Allah will rain retribution upon the offending culture.

But for the most part, they are indeed content to leave such things TO Allah.

On the other hand, Canada doesn't routinely fire cruise missiles at people in the fond belief that it's a solution to a complex foreign policy issue.

The peculiar American delusion that one can rain death from a great height and not gain enemies thereby is somewhat baffling to me; it seems an obvious violation of common sense, however justified such "big stick" actions are.

"Justifiable" does not mean that those ducking the shrapnel are going to be suddenly struck by the irrefutable reason of our diplomatic position. If they were, it wouldn't have been necessary to deliver a stiff diplomatic cruise missile.

But whatever I think of American foreign policy, it doesn't follow that diving airplanes into buildings is a reasonable, appropriate or defensible thing to do.

Anybody who thinks I'm attempting to justify such an act is utterly mistaken. I do, however, think it's wise to at least attempt to understand it; the motivations for it and the context it exists in, just for the sake of self-preservation.

But the national psyche seems to support any number of bizarre and inexplicable assumptions.

Today, a man said on national television that those who are not overwhelmed by grief at the untimely end of thousands of unrelated strangers is emotionally disturbed and should seek treatment. And one is tempted to nod until you realize that no one would suggest that the entire nation should be so paralyzed with grief at the passing of an equal number of Chinese in an earthquake. It would be tragic, it would noted, we'd contribute money and dry socks to the rescue efforts - and then we'd get on with our lives.

More directly and relevantly - where were the candlelight vigils for the civilian victims of the aerial assault on Baghdad? Whatever you thought of it, whether you felt it a justifiable and necessary act, no matter how unavoidable those civilian casualties were - still. Why were we not moved? How can we justify being horrified now, if we were not then?

The fact that the US military moved heaven and earth to avoid civilian casualties and managed to do so up to the limits imposed by physics, intelligence and human perversity is beside the point. If every corpse in the World Trade center is worth a bio on CNN, SO WERE THEY.

And while it was not precisely a terrorist act, certainly the idea that we were "sending a message" was an integral part of the exercise.

Personally, I was not moved at all. And after the sheer, overwhelming surprise wore off, I was not moved by this, even though a distant cousin I'd never met perished in one of the planes.

My response seems to be purely intellectual, and from an intellectual viewpoint, I can see the argument for launching cruise missiles at Baghdad - considering the Scuds raining on the whole region and the Iraqi attack on Kuwait.

The fact that our national motivations were not entirely idealistic doesn't bother me. Our government's JOB is to pursue our national advantage. That includes securing an oil supply. If that happens to mesh with our national ideals, O happy day! And it did, very much so, and that's aside from treaty obligations.

But still, I don't see why a dead US citizen should be regretted more emotionally than the deaths of strangers who have the misfortune of living in an a tyranny with opposing agendas. But it's apparently supposed to be, for "normal" people.

So in order to be "normal," I have to place myself in a disordered, irrational mental state that prohibits me from thinking clearly or doing anything useful about the situation.

Well, I'm not normal, and thank God. I'd think that at times like this, we could profit by having more like me manning vital functions while all the normal people make utter inconveniences of themselves.

I don't see how being paralyzed with grief, racked by irrational fear and plunged into depression is going to help anyone, any more than wearing a red, white and blue jockstrap is going to do one single thing to combat world terrorism.

I would like to see a lot less patriotic posturing and a lot more serious thought about what can be done to prevent such things from occurring while at the same time, how to do that without turning ourselves into a repressive police state.

That's real patriotism. It's an expensive habit, real patriotism. Ask any of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. At the end, those that weren't dead were mostly broke.

Real patriotism takes a deal more commitment than printing out a stack of flags, sticking them up randomly and sighing with contentedness at how much of a Real American you are.

It demands an unemotional determination to do what it takes, while maintaining our Republican principles. (Some would say Democratic principles. That's another cultural myth. This has never been a democracy. It's a republic. That's a significantly different thing.)

Irrational patriotic fervor will not help and will likely lead to yet an exponential increase in the number of our live enemies, instead of what we actually want - a smallish smoking hole filled with thoroughly dead ones, communicating the global impression that a policy of terror against us is not just a bad idea - it's an absolutely fatal bad idea.

I refer you to what happened to the terrorists that killed the Israeli Olympic team at the 72 Olympics. The Mossad tracked each of them down and killed every one of them with surgical precision. There have been terrorist acts against Israeli citizens since - but none like that.*

This can only be achieved by a very clear view of the ends and a diamond-hard determination that the means must be both measured, appropriate, and applied with total commitment.

It will take a great deal of time to do this. It's complicated, messy and it will be unavoidably bloody. The world at large is convinced that the United States is willing to do whatever it takes - so long as it doesn't take more than six months, result in any actual casualties, raise their taxes or affect their lifestyle in any way.

So far, I see no evidence this perception is inaccurate to any significant degree.

That is exactly why the terrorists think they can get away with this - they are convinced that the United States simply does not have the attention span to allow any other outcome.

We had best decide to disabuse them, or this will continue. And next time, it might be a building you are in, or even a city.

We also have to face something else - that this particular conflict arises out of an irreconcilable ideological difference. It's not something we can defuse with gifts, bribes, apologies or even the removal of key figures in the terrorist community.

Ultimately, there IS no rational solution to this situation because the fundamental world views of the opposing sites are utterly, starkly and completely incompatible; the two systems cannot co-exist. The means by which western culture will destroy the Islamic Fundamentalist Movement don't involve bombs and guns; they are nonetheless as destructive of that culture as a rain of atomic weapons on us would be.

More so.

And it's a good thing, too, because it's an evil culture that should be eradicated, root and branch.

Those who are aware of the world outside of the Lower 48 have been warning of the increasing threat of religious fundamentalism in general and Islamic fundamentalism in particular.

In ironic illustration of this, Jerry Falwell made a statement that any Ayatollah would agree with.

"RICHMOND, Va., Sept. 18 ? The Rev. Jerry Falwell has apologized for saying God had allowed terrorists to attack America because of the work of civil liberties groups, abortion rights supporters and feminists. Falwell said his comments were ill-timed, insensitive and divisive at a time of national mourning. President Bush had called the minister?s statement inappropriate."

You note that he didn't say he'd changed his mind, he just apologized for bad timing.

While the Ayatollahs and Mullahs may disagree with Jerry about certain abstract theological issues, boy, they sure do agree about the proper fate of faggots and loose women. They certainly agree that religion should have the right to enforce "proper" behavior, even on those who don't share the beliefs that would make sense of those behaviors.
If Jerry had his way - we'd be stoning "harlots" and "apostates" in the street too.

Think on that.

Think on the logical danger of permitting that degree of delusional self-righteousness to take on the form of a government. Realize what sort of threat that is to EVERY person of EVERY belief EVERYWHERE... and then realize what needs doing. It's not something we can afford to tolerate; not a movement that we can allow to spread.

The fundamentalism - stupid and irrational as it is - THAT we must tolerate. It's the idea that it may permissibly be enforced on those who do not share those beliefs is what must be eliminated from the world consciousness.

It's that paradigm that has prevented any widespread outrages against the large Islamic communities in the United States in particular and the West in general. Contrast that against your survival chances as an identifiable Westerner in the general vicinity of whatever happens next, folks.

Maybe you can't do anything personally about middle eastern terrorists - but you can speak against the sort of mindset that exists here that would do the same here and HAS done it, in Oklahoma City, Selma, Alabama and at abortion clinics across the nation. The idea that anyone has the right to enforce a moral standard or ideological belief through terror cannot be tolerated.

It's not an idea that can be combated selectively and conveniently; it's far too fundamental. It has come down to a choice. This is, if you like, Armageddon; The Place of Decision.

So decide.

So the next time you see hate speech, do something. The next time you hear someone advocating violence against others based on their beliefs, sexual orientation or gender, do something.

You think there's any fundamental difference between Operation Rescue, the KKK, Bader-Meinhoff, the Red Brigade or Islamic Jihad? They all believe passionately in their causes; they are all willing to die to further it. Now, that's reasonable. It's even laudable to be willing to die for a belief.

Being willing to kill innocent (or at least, uninvolved) persons in wholesale lots in order to terrify the surviving masses into compliance with an agenda - that's just plain evil.

It must not be allowed EVEN IF YOU AGREE with their goals. No matter HOW urgent, how imperative it is. If your cause is not such that passionate speech and personal example will not serve to sway the majority - it could just be that you are passionately and sincerely wrong.

That's what the marketplace of ideas is for, what freedom of speech and freedom of the press is intended to ensure; that ideas are fully tested before they are implemented as social policy.

We can see what happens in cultures where this doesn't happen. Not only are they generally tyrannies, they are dusty, repressive, broke and BORING tyrannies.

We must also embrace that ideal as a national policy. The US government has, from time to time, thought it appropriate to "support freedom" by supplying "freedom fighters" in their struggles against... well, usually something that will cost us money or prestige.

We have to stop doing that, if for no other reason than an easily-documented history of this short sighted policy biting us on the butt.

The Taliban is just the LATEST example of "heroic freedom fighters" who suddenly became terrorists when they decided we were legitimate targets. Understand that their motivations and means havn't changed in the slightest - just their point of aim.

The Viet Minh, The Chinese Red Army and the Cuban patriots of the Bay of Pigs have all managed to inconvenience us. And that's just from this century. It's taken the South over a century to live down Quantrell.

You would think someone in Langley, VA might have gotten a clue by now, but since that is apparently not the case, you might wish to write your Congresscritter about your concerns - and suggest that more attention to the long term effects of foreign policy is NOT incompatible with their responsibilities for packing the pork in barrels and shipping it home.

In light of the likely costs of "America's New War," I'd say that a little more attention would have been cheap at nearly any price.

But hell, I'm just an aspy. I obviously don't grasp the damage to the social fabric, or the visceral need to go and kill someone, anyone, whether or not they had anything to do with this. Forgive my impatient foot-tapping as you persist in flapping helplessly, achieving nothing at great length. But if I hear one more person say that this outpouring of patriotism has Strengthened Our Great Nation, I may just puke.

I'm not hanging any damn flag, going to any candlelight vigils or indulging in any other pointless exercises that are intended to promote the sort of emotional solidarity I'm mentally incapable of feeling.

But I do see the utility of meaningful gestures.

Click here and donate to the Red Cross.

In retrospect, I see only two failures of assumption - the idea that given the circumstances, evangelical funnymentalism would lose rather than gain support, and the slightly less embarrassing assumption that the Red Cross was a responsible and charitable organization.

I wish I'd had a few more inaccuracies - and that they were inaccuracies in favor of a more charitable view of human nature and the intelligence of the American People.

At this point in my life, I believe I have achieved a level of wizened cynicism that would have appalled PT Barnum, or even Boss Tweed. I apologize to all of you who relied in any way at my earlier, innocent and touching naiveté.

"They" need us more than we need "them."

Over the last, oh, fifty to a hundred years, there has been a great effort toward shaping a general belief (and legislating to place stumbling blocks in front of those who have contrasting views), that for every problem of humanity there is a corporate solution that is better than any other means of dealing with that problem.

Even when some of those problems would not exist, had there been no corporate interest in solving them.

You may may suspect this is one of those "go back to the land" pieces that crop up like dock and dandelions in your yard. It IS an apt symbol - freely reproducing edible greens being considered the "enemy" of inedible, chemical-intensive grass.

But illustrative as it is of the principle, the principle is not going back to subsistence agriculture, or indeed, subsistence anything. Corporations exist as they because individual productivity has become very high indeed, and there is a great surplus to sustain their excesses.

And while many really do pay their own way, many are frankly parasitic, forcing choices upon us that are individually disadvantageous.

Consider, if you will, the twin evils of Asparatame and High-Fructose Corn Syrup.

If you live in the United States, and you want a soft drink, you get your choice of two substances that may well be worse for you than the sugar they replace. Neither one is possible to produce without the sort of huge, complex infrastructure that only a corporation could possibly afford, made possible not by honest market competition but by corrupt regulation and corn subsidies.

But you could choose to drink tea or coffee instead. Then you still get a choice of sweeteners, ranging from honey to sugar to saccharine to Aspartame and Sucralose.

Or you could simply do a bit of research on the web and find out how to carbonate your own water in bulk, or simply from a small appliance on demand. That's not a paid link. It just happened to show up on the first page of my Google search, lucky them, as I was thinking that the most difficult ingredient in pop is the bubbles. It used to be quite the difficult enterprise - back when soda was a novelty. Nowdays, though, the technology is actually quite simple, and probably accessible to anyone with a few wrenches and a Home Depot card. Soda Club obviously realized this ahead of me.



Jones Soda got started that way, realizing that the absence of honest soda in a wide variety of flavors was something they could build a business on. And now they have gone to pure cane sugar as a replacement for HFCS sweetener, again due to direct demand.

To sweeten sodas, and a multitude of other food and beverages, companies typically use the sweetener high fructose corn syrup (or HFCS for short). But here at Jones we’ve decided to do things a little different. Thanks to phone calls from our fans, consumer research, and one passionately loud Jones Soda Receptionist, we are tossing out the HFCS. You may have seen that our 12-ounce cans of soda are now made with pure cane sugar, and by mid-2007 all of your favorite Jones products will be available with real sugar.

Soda club goes a step further, saying "what would you add to seltzer water if you had fresh seltzer to start with?" This is a P2P idea, and they expand on it - as does Jones - by maintaining direct relationships with their customers.

Here's what they have to say about sweeteners:

6. How do you sweeten your regular flavors?

Soda-Club regular sodamix flavors contain sugar (sucrose), not high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). While many of our labels do say “sugar and/or high fructose corn syrup”, we have chosen to formulate without high fructose corn syrup and have not yet updated our labels to reflect this fact. The exception to this is Energy Drink, which indeed does contain fructose and dextrose, in addition to sucrose. In addition to sugar (sucrose), regular sodamix flavors contain sucralose (Splenda® brand) and some also contain acesulfame potassium. If you have dietary concerns, please read the label of every Soda-Club product before purchasing, available by clicking the sodamix images on the Flavors Galore page of this website. When in doubt, consult with your physician.

Consumer preference rules - when companies don't have any involvement with other companies that would prefer consumers didn't have preferences. It's getting a lot easier for consumers to find out which sort of company they are dealing with and making a silent choice based on that information.

But ven the worst corporation has to produce something of arguable value, or sooner or later it will be revealed as a vast ponzi scheme. Consider Enron.

Alas, this is not true of governments; governments have no commonly agreed objective measure of success, other than "not being replaced." Generally, they maintain a monopoly or near-monopoly on organized force, so they are damn difficult to dislodge, even if they act in ways that would have scandalized the board of governors of the Astoria Corporation.

But even governments can be and will be erased by this sort of philosophical, economic and infrastructural sea-change. When they cease to matter to "the people who matter" - they will no longer matter much at all. And who will be "the people that matter?" Well, that's hard to say precisely, but it's certain that there will be a lot more of those of us that matter, at the expense of the influence of "them."

You see, in life, you get a choice. You can choose to be "one of us," or one of "them." The "usses" are those that share your interests, needs and desires. "Thems" are the folks that "would rather be a hammer than a nail." For a particular sort of aspirant "them", government is the natural choice. While it does not offer the potential financial reward that climbing a corporate ladder does, it offers something better - individual access to power.

That, or one is blessed (or cursed) with a greater than usual need for rules and structure, so one is drawn to becoming a tiny cog among a great number of other cogs, without the need to make any choices at all.

This brave new world brings to light the possiblity of a political and economic universe for each of us that contains no "thems." You deal only with those who you need to and want to, from a wide range of possible choices. You almost never encounter a "them," much less have to submit to them, unless your own personal needs cause you to seek "them" out.

These admittedly simplistic observations do illustrate the unavoidable choice we are all facing - assent or dissent regarding the overriding model for the next age of human civilization - given that some aspects of it are simply inevitable outgrowths of our communications, logistics and transport infrastructure. Whatever we think of the result, a flattening of the pyramids of authority and capital seems both overdue and inevitable, and the righting of the balance will likely be more violent the more government and capital conspire to put off the inevitable with "globalization" strategies that are simply a means to keep power and wealth in the same few hands.

Of course, that's way too complicated for most folks. But that doesn't matter, because that choice will be made, for the most part, by people who don't understand it at all, justified by the words of those who barely comprehend it. (Had they really comprehended what they were saying, they would have written it comprehensibly.)

In the current historical configuration, our technological infrastructures are often taken the form of a distributed network, such as the point to point internet, or the generalized self-publishing features of the web which allow any internet user to produce and diffuse different type of content. Humanity has therefore a technology which has the fundamental effect of allowing the global coordination of small teams, which can now work on global projects based on affinity. Well-known expressions of this is the production of the alternative computer operating system Linux, and the universal Wikipedia encyclopedia. But the over a billion already connected people are literally engaged in tens of thousands of such collective projects, which are producing all kinds of social value. The alterglobalization movement is one expression of a movement born out of such networks, which can globally organize and mobilize without access to the decentralized mass media, using a wide variety of micro media resources.

In the business environment, we see the increasing importance of diffuse social innovation (innovation as an emerging byproduct of networked communities, rather than internally funded entrepreneurial R & D), and we see the emergence of asymmetric competition between for-benefit institutions based on communities of peer producers), which are successfully competing with traditional for profit companies. In addition, for profit companies are now themselves adapting and therefore using practices pioneered by such communities. This is not the right context to explain in detail such trends, so interested readers are referred to the Wiki Encyclopedia at P2PFoundation.Net . We are witnessing a similar process as when imperial slaveholders were freeing their slaves into serfs, or smart feudal lords where sponsoring merchants and entrepreneurs.

Perhaps they were writing for a particular audience. I can write like that too, when I wanna sound all smart and inarguable, but that usually means I'm a wee teense weak on the ground. But never mind the presentation, there is a solid core to this article - and the site.

This is about Peer-to-Peer relationships, which is a strange and bloodless way of saying that the future will be made from relationships of choice between persons, using mechanisms that essentially network around choice limiting hierarchies and authoritarian decision-making processes, and whatever structures that persist from our time into that future will have done so because they have adapted to that new reality.

In other words, I will drink Coke if the only alternate is Pepsi - unless I'm eating mild foods, in which case, I'll have Pepsi - if the coffee is typically bad. But if RC Cola is in the fountain, neither competing soft drink nor coffee stand a chance.

Now, why is RC not in the fountain? It's not because of equipment issues, distribution issues or even cost. It's due to exclusive marketing agreements. Most places get to choose Coke or Pepsi, and whatever other beverages the bottler chooses to hand them. They get a small choice and their customers none at all.

P2P enterprises are about giving your peers - friends, customers, suppliers - what THEY want in exchange for what YOU want. Most often that will be money, but there are other valuable considerations, such as prestige, such as market share, such as "being the best."

For myself, were I opening a food joint today, I'd be tempted to choose "none of the above" and go with making my own designer pop, even though I suspect I'd have to invest more for less return. It would significantly difference myself in a marketplace filled with franchises and "might as well be franchises;" it could well allow me to prosper without a liquor license!

The fact that proper "soda fountain" culture has not reappeared is because it's more expensive and supplies are probably hard to come by, and the old-fashioned technology requred a good deal of skill.

Still, with more modern controls, it could well be the next "Starbucks" phenomenon, when various local and then national and international entrepreneurs realized that people like choices - and LIKE the option of a better than average product.

Incidentally, the very existence of a Starbucks on every corner has raised the quality of American coffee at least two ticks on the "Joe Scale."

Five basic grades: Coffee, java, jamoke, joe and carbon remover. (Author Robert A. Heinlein, Glory Road)

Joe usta be what you got, jamoke in a fancy place. Brewed 80 cups to the pound in a drip machine that hadn't been cleaned in a week, then left on the hob until it was empty, the best one could say for it was that it had caffeine, it was hot and it wasn't actually poisonous. Nowadays, you often find Java, if not actual coffee. The marketplace DOES work, you see, when nobody futzes with it. But that's what both governments and huge multinational corporations do, almost by design - futz with otherwise free markets. But, short of actual force, that is accomplished mainly by restriction on the distribution of and access to both education and information - and both of those are structural issues that the existing order depends on, but did not create and really cannot enforce.

So we can see this as being essentially an emerging, gradual phenomenon, the de-institutionalization of US culture.

Republicans tend to see that as a bad thing, Democrats tend to see that (guardedly) as a mostly good thing, and neither party has any more choice in the matter. Being varieties of authoritarian, both will have to cope with a general decrease in the social value of authoritarian personalties - "decision makers," "movers and shakers" who make wholesale choices on behalf of entire demographics.

They will have to learn to be content with offering choices, instead.

This, of course, brings me to the current political situation, where our only choices seem to be cosmetic and meaningless.

Again, if the choice is between Coke and Pepsi - perhaps it's tea-time!

In other words, concentrate on the aspects of government that affect you and yours and work to change those things so that they either go away or become more benign. This may seem selfish, but if everyone does it, it will all come out in the wash.

And then of course, whenever government is completely foolish or criminal, ignore it when possible, evade it if necessary and resist it if unavoidable. This approach makes a great deal of difference over time; consider, for instance, how greatly the war on drugs has degraded general respect for drug laws and lawmakers - to the extent that entire state governments are at loggerheads with the federal government on this issue. The outcome is quite inevitable in law because it's fait accompli in practice. The social use of marijuana is widely accepted and it's medical use - at least in principle - has reached near universal acceptance, or at least tolerance.

Certainly it's become evident that the risks of growing a little weed for personal use are trivial, even though the potential penalties are draconian; outside of the DEA, few law-enforcement officials can be bothered with that "vice" when there are crimes that really matter.

(Nor does it likely escape the average cop on a night beat during a full moon that more widespread usage of pot might make their job a LOT easier.)

So, take a good solid look at to what degree government affects you, and to what extent the investment of your energy into a national presidential election keeps you from using it in more directly profitable ways.

For most Nevadans, that might be ridding ourselves of Jim Gibbons and his cronies, or working to diversify our energy and economic infrastructures. It may probably boil down further to your county or your town. It used to be that we needed central knowledge bases and centralized decision makers. Now we have the world wide web, FedEx and all kinds of "appropriate technology" options that can be implemented in a cost-effective way on an individual or neighborhood basis - given the proper and appropriately respectful climate of regulation.

So let's see to that.

It's been many years since our elected representatives had to do much personal interaction to get our votes - or lose them. It's time we paid closer attention, and consider how many of them we need at all. Both political and appointive structures are hierarchical, and governments as well as profit-making entities will HAVE to adapt to a new reality of Peer to Peer approaches - or wither away.

Not in the happy fun Marxist wet-dream sense. As in being entirely replaced, made irrelevant, bypassed; becoming a vestigial, ceremonial residue not unlike various European monarchies or the Canadian Senate.

What WILL the "top ten," the cheerleaders and the homecoming queens (of all genders) do with themselves?

Well, as people persons, they should do rather well for themselves in a Peer to Peer world. They will just have to do it differently. Along with the rest of us, who may well have to employ them as our surrogate peers.

In the intermediate term, consider what your candidate actually says about the issues that matter to you. And by "Says," I mean what they say in practical terms, not the airy generalities and High Concept specification. That's all very fine and good, of course - if it has a practical implementation.

You see, our new and bravely webbed world means that there will be a change in how business and government is done, for good, for ill, and likely both. The only question NOT at issue is whether change will occur; it will occur just as surely as the growth of a good road network made the Roman Empire possible. Possible - but not inevitable, other than there was a need for some entity to maintain roads and trade nexi. It could just as well been a federation of trade guilds as a consolidation of power in the hands of traditional authorities.

Ask not what you can do for your country; ask what your country can do for you. Because in a Peer to Peer world, your peers are just as likely to be in Afghanistan as next door, so a government that presumes to pick and choose your peers - and your friends - is not acting in your interest at all.

Considering the expense of the damn things - national governments - they are overdue for an audit both in concept and practice. That is to say, if they wish to continue being of service past the first decade or so of this new millennium.

UPDATE: I investigated Soda Club, since I stumbled across it, and found out that I COULD become an affiliate. So I applied, and it will appear in my sidebar as a permanent sponsor. Why?

Not because I expect to make a ton of money. It's because I believe you are known by your friends, and what they stand for. This firm seems to me to be representative of the thrust of this whole article, and what Graphictruth is all about. I mean, I'd LOVE to make a dime or two off this, don't get me wrong. But it's more about investing in the idea, even if it's just vicariously.

Here's their link. And here's the link to their Affiliate page, just in case you might like to spread the word yourself.

Love soda? Get a Soda-Club soda maker! About the size of a coffeemaker and even easier to use, you’ll make fresh seltzer and soda at the touch of a button, with no clean-up. No more lugging, storing and recycling. Over 25 great-tasting flavors.

And their diet varieties come with "Splenda" instead of the other. In case that matters to you. Me, the idea of being able to make fresh juice-based drinks is even more attractive. Alternately, you could carbonate your Kool-Aide - or even your gelatin desserts.

The point is, you get to choose, and the marketing is not about making you want something in particular, but wanting to become empowered to choose what YOU really want.

Even if it's Jones Soda's "turkey and gravy" flavor.

Having just Re-Read The Tao, I become Yodafied.

Today, I found it important to remind myself of the Tao.

8

The supreme good is like water,
which nourishes all things without trying to.
It is content with the low places that people disdain.
Thus it is like the Tao.

In dwelling, live close to the ground.
In thinking, keep to the simple.
In conflict, be fair and generous.
In governing, don't try to control.
In work, do what you enjoy.
In family life, be completely present.

When you are content to be simply yourself
and don't compare or compete,
everybody will respect you.

Then I stumbled across a silly blogmeme, and found that in reading the Tao, I had become Yodified.

A venerated sage with vast power and knowledge, you gently guide forces around you while serving as a champion of the light.

Judge me by my size, do you? And well you should not - for my ally is the Force. And a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us, and binds us. Luminescent beings are we, not this crude matter! You must feel the Force around you, everywhere.

Yoda is a is a character in the Star Wars universe. More Yoda information is available at the Star Wars Databank.

Finding my great thoughts mirrored in the mundane and trivial, I feel validated in a zen kinda way.

In the Valley of Elah

I just sent this off to the publicity people for a new film, opening in theaters now, as they say.

I don't usually do film reviews on graphictruth.com, and I am not wanting to be on your list of "usual suspects," though I'm interested in UNusual films.

The hook for me was that my state senator and majority leader, Harry Reid, handed off a copy to John Kerry - who watched it and sent out a notice to his entire mailing list.

Graphictruth.com is pretty much about what it sounds like, and it sounds like this is a very graphic truth indeed.

For me, the fact that the ball started rolling on this in 2003 is to me the most interesting part of this story. It takes that long for the consequences of some acts to materialize, sometimes even longer.

This seems to be all about unintended, unimagined and unimaginable consequences.

I really, really do not want to see this film. I expect it will give me nightmares.

Can you please send me a review copy?

Regards;

Bob King
Graphictruth.com

I can count the number of times I've done something like this on my thumbs. And I'm doing it knowing that it is going to have a certain message, it is going to portray a certain reality that will be unpalatable to those who think that the War in Iraq and the War on Terror are inseparable.But in fact, when you go to war - every time, and for whatever reason, you must pay the Butcher's Bill - and the horrifying truth is that each and every soldier who faces combat is affected forever. This paragraph comes from John Kerry's letter.

The former top operating officer at the Pentagon, a Marine Lieutenant General, once said of Iraq that "the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions --or bury the results."

I've never seriously considered myself to be anti-war. It strikes me rather like being anti-hurricane.

It really doesn't matter to the hurricane whether you are philosophically opposed to it's existence or not. One can prepare for it, one can avoid being in it or choose to endure it, one must respond to it intelligently and clean up the mess so that life can return to normal. These are common sense observations, and wars come upon us for many reasons, many of which are no more under our control than the weather.

I am pro-peace - and to me, the best way to ensure peace and the best way to return to a state of peace subsequent to war is to have a very efficient and powerful response to aggression, and as realistic an appreciation as possible as to the costs of war upon the people asked to fight it and those who must stay at home. Above all, don't stupidly create conditions that may provoke a war.

There is a huge, indefinable, but real price that must be paid over the generations for every act of war, for ever war that starts due to foolishness, misadventure, miscalculation, aggression, need, greed, the hunger for power or the desire for "living room."

Thousands of years ago, Sun Tsu considered all these things in his "Art of War," a book George W. Bush has clearly never read, or at least comprehended. Source: Shonshi.com; Links indicated with question marks lead to related discussion threads:

If one gains victory in battle and is successful in attacks, but does not exploit those achievements, it is disastrous.

This is called waste and delay. ?

Therefore, I say the wise general thinks about it, and the good general executes it. ?

If it is not advantageous, do not move;

if there is no gain, do not use troops;

if there is no danger, do not do battle. ?

The ruler may not move his army out of anger; the general may not do battle out of wrath. ?
If it is advantageous, move;

if it is not advantageous, stop. ?

Those angry will be happy again, and those wrathful will be cheerful again, but a destroyed nation cannot exist again, the dead cannot be brought back to life. ?

Therefore, the enlightened ruler is prudent, the good general is cautious.

This is the Way of securing the nation, and preserving the army. ?

And I could not resist adding this further citation from the very first page:

Before doing battle, in the temple one calculates and will win, because many calculations were made;

before doing battle, in the temple one calculates and will not win, because few calculations were made; ?

Many calculations, victory, few calculations, no victory, then how much less so when no calculations?

By means of these, I can observe them, beholding victory or defeat! ?

It seems that in this case, foresight was 20/20.

Technorati : 2003, 2008, George W. Bush, Harry Reid, In the Valley of Elah, Iran, Iraq War, John Kerry, Sun Tsu, The Art of War, anti-war, peace, strategy

Ron Paul encourages distrust of political power.

Here's some back-catalog wisdom from Ron Paul, via his article archive on Lou Rockwell which serves to explain something I'd wondered - what his idea of government (and governing) might look like.

Political Power and the Rule of Law by Ron Paul Annotated

[P]oliticians are not supposed to have power over us – we're supposed to be free. We seem to have forgotten that freedom means the absence of government coercion. So when politicians and the media celebrate political power, they really are celebrating the power of certain individuals to use coercive state force.

Remember that one's relationship with the state is never voluntary. Every government edict, policy, regulation, court decision, and law ultimately is backed up by force, in the form of police, guns, and jails. That is why political power must be fiercely constrained by the American people.

The desire for power over other human beings is not something to celebrate, but something to condemn! The 20th century's worst tyrants were political figures, men who fanatically sought power over others through the apparatus of the state. They wielded that power absolutely, without regard for the rule of law.

...

Aside from the lack of ethical self-interest shown by voting for a candidate based on their "strength" and perceived "toughness," we should all realize that in choosing that path we are abandoning our own duty to participate in, comment upon and know about the issues of the day. It also displays an appalling ignorance regarding the Constitution and our rather unique political system.

I very much understand the seductive vision of a Government that Does Good things, but the trouble with that is that in order to do Good Things, we empower them to do Bad Things as well, at least, unless we are very vigilant and careful in crafting limits on that power. The power we delegate is attractive to the very people who will be tempted to do Bad and Stupid things to us, often For Our Own Good.

Those who hold political power, however, would lose their status in a society with truly limited government. It simply would not matter much who occupied various political posts, since their ability to tax, spend, and regulate would be severely curtailed. This is why champions of political power promote an activist government that involves itself in every area of our lives from cradle to grave. They gain popular support by promising voters that government will take care of everyone, while the media shower them with praise for their bold vision.

My personal view of the role of government as a useful tool is probably somewhat broader than Dr. Paul's, but we have had so few spokespersons coming from a position of Constitutional fundamentalism that I'm loathe to ignore his observations and insistence upon the fundamentals.

And therefore, let me state that I see the government as a tool, belonging to every citizen, legal resident, tourist and even every illegal alien that exists solely to protect individual rights and liberties that our Constitution recognizes to be inherent in each person, regardless of status, position, citizenship, sexual orientation, race or creed. To that end, and to that end alone, it is empowered to guard our liberties.

But I'm also a realist. If government exists only to say no and does not somehow facilitate the correction things that trouble, inconvenience or anger a majority of the American people, it's not unreasonable for it to be discarded as rusty and useless.

And I observe that while government has become a dire threat to the freedom and legitimate private choices of all Americans, it's due largely because Government has ceased to consider the rights of individuals, instead heeding only the voices of corporate bodies, such as military contractors, trade organizations, big pharma and religious pressure groups.

These various corporate interests hold power in their own right that rivals that of state and even many national governments. Many of them (Haliburton leaps to mind) are quite literally above the law - and others seek to write law regardless of it's impact upon the liberty of citizens. Indeed, many of them have effectively limited my liberty in some of the most basic ways, through economic coercion. This is particularly noticeable in our food supplies and consumer goods; a handful of corporations determine what we will be able to buy and where we will buy it. Bluntly, they have stolen the commons - save, of course, in the areas where other giant corporations (such as eBay) find a profit in enlarging it.

But as much as I value such free-enterprise solutions to such problems, it's my guess that had others seen it coming, they would have stomped all over Ebay. Nor can we ask corporations, structured as they are under the laws that apply, to put the interests of the consumers and their workforce even on a par with that of the shareholders. This is simply a fact - and those facts must change if we are to change that reality.

You may be tempted to view that as "anti-capitalism" and "anti-free market," but on the contrary - I wish to see a regulatory climate that actually favors individual enterprise and rewards the risk of capital. I wish to see a lowering of regulatory barriers to the markets that are rigged to favor big corporate interests. And ultimately, I see this as a vital component in a truly viable and affordable national security policy.

The real key to national security in this day and age is an infrastructure that cannot be easily disrupted by a few sticks of dynamite, so we need to look at, for instance, encouraging widely redundant, small scale energy production using local resources. This is quite aside from "green" fuel initiatives, but that's where the technology is.

We need to have our essential defense forces, our first-responders here, instead of "over there," with a broader base in our social fabric. Most importantly, we need to cultivate a culture of participation and tolerance.

So, we don't need a Department of Education. We DO need a national standard minimum curriculum which is the basis of our citizenship. That minimum common basis of understanding is vital - but beyond the requirement that it be successfully taught, we really do not care how, where or by whom, do we?

Universal access to health care is vital, both politically and personally, when unexpected health care costs have become the leading cause of personal bankruptcy. HOW we go about that - what choice of mechanism, what happens between need and delivery need not have a single answer - but it must become straightforward, simple and accessible to every citizen. It is a common interest regardless of wealth or poverty, class or station. When you are sick or injured, that is not the time to be hassled with paperwork or worrying about the ability to pay.

We also need to look at the ethics involved - it's frankly improper to require doctors or hospitals to consider the necessity of rationing health care in order to make a profit. Doctors, nurses and hospital staff need to make a living - a good one, commensurate to their responsibilities and demand for their skills. But hospitals should be local, with oversight from those who depend upon them.

It may well be that the least intrusive, best performing system would be "socialist" in appearance, at the bottom tier, at least. If everyone needs a thing, and everyone is able to pay their share of that thing, than that is what it will look like. The difference, of course, is whether it's mandatory or optional. A good system of universal health care needn't be mandatory - simply competitive as all hell.

But this end could also be accomplished in part by regulatory means; for instance, requiring that insurance companies divest themselves of hospitals and requiring hospitals return to a "not for profit" standard. And certainly, it would be simple and elegant for people to be able to choose to participate in an insurance pool funded by an opt-in withholding program.

Why? Because that system exists and the expertise exists. If we decide to revise the tax code - as we really should - it would be silly to toss away all that expertise infrastructure and equipment only to have to re-invent the wheel.

At it's base, it should be not-for-profit with an emphasis on prevention and health, but it should be possible for people to buy additional coverage for things such as private rooms, etc. Perhaps we need to return to the idea of "not for profit" insurance, such as Blue Cross and Blue Shield used to be, but with the possibility of private, for profit institutions that accept "plus" coverage, cosmetic services or "a superior recovery experience."

And of course, the simplest thing of all would be to require all government and private insurance to use the same database format and the same minimum criteria so that overhead costs for health care providers would be lowered and consumers could compare apples to apples. Of course, this should be encrypted to the same standard as critical defense secrets, but what's an NSA for, humn?

And finally, we need to take a serious look at creating a universal social safety net, one accomplished as much or more by regulatory change as by spending. Changes in zoning laws and landlord-tenant laws would do a great deal to alleviate homelessness, joblessness and many other ills that simply throwing money at people will not solve.

Changes in legislation that would help natural and voluntary families care for one another without interference would go a good ways to creating such a safety net too. But what we must stop relying on is military service, government service and prisons. From the viewpoint of our culture and civilization, sending everyone a check would be far cheaper.

But we cannot tolerate Constitutional compromise. Further, it's a sign of sloppy thinking and lazy legislation. If a desired goal cannot be constitutionally attained, then it probably should not be. If it really must be attained, then there is an amendment process that ensures that all objections are heard.

Finally, I think that Government must be reminded that it should be worth the price people are asked to pay, and that a good government is like any other enterprise - competent, effective and considerate of it's clients. Right now, that standard has not been met on the federal level in living memory and I rather expect the same could be said of most state and local governments.

Edit: I came back to fix a few misspellings and a grammatical error or two and realized there was a glaring point I'd failed to meet head-on. Coercion is coercion is coercion. It matters little to me or thee if force is applied by government to force me this way instead of that, or if it's economic force applied to me by a corporation. If the government does not protect me and the markets my liberty depends on, it matters very little who benefits from my compliance.

And likewise - a "tax" is anything you must pay or any standard you must comply with (at your own expense, risk or inconvenience) in order to do what you have to do. My doctor pays a "tax" amounting to the full salaries of two people and the partial salary of a third simply to comply with paperwork related to insurance forms. He passes this cost on to the insurers of course - who stick me with a "deductible" which is, in fact, a tax on MY access to health care, and since I have no choice about that - due to where the insurance comes from - it's a tax, and a damned steep one at that.


tag: Ron Paul, Libertarian Philosophy, Taxes, Taxation, Liberty, Corporations, Corporate State, compliance costs, , universal health care, education policy, energy policy, culture, Individual Rights, Personal Responsibility, Constitutional Government, Limited Government

What a long strange journey... (Updated)

Dear George Soros;

Yesterday was a strange journey in linkhopping, which I'm going to try and reproduce from my history, as recording it got interrupted by Life. Checking The Daily Kos (while looking for Cindy Sheehan's Farewell) pointed me at strange events at Free Republic, and checking references to that led me to this Myspace Blog which quoted a statement on Patriotism by Ron Paul. I reproduce it full in a separate post, as it needs to be easily found and widely read.

And THAT led me to write this scrolling monstrosity. More below the fold.

You see, I'm getting to like Ron Paul as a candidate, and I think you might want to lay a few discreet bets on him. Even though I call myself "libertarian," I've never voted for Ron Paul, or indeed, very many Libertarians, inasmuch as most seem to be as doctrinally inflexible as young-earth Creationists. Most seem very much concerned about their freedom from (insert pet peeve here) and at the same time resist any suggestion of any personal responsibility to defend the inalienable rights of other person from abuses - at least, so long as those abuses are not at the hands of the Evil State.

I tend to refer to that sort of Libertarian as an "ah gawt a gawdamn RIGHTist," and it generally devolves in practice to a system of denying any responsibility toward "promoting the general welfare" or heeding the legitimate concerns of others that you may not be properly equipped or actually qualified to be brewing up methamphetimine in your basement "lab."

But this same legitimate skepticism applies with equal ruthlessness to our self-appointed Lords and Masters; given their track record known from the Cold War and earlier, I do seriously question the reasonably of blindly trusting, say, the Army, to be playing with biological or radiological weapons without robust accountability and independent supervision.

Ron Paul has much of that sort of grown-up skepticism tempering his ideology, and he's a rabid Constitutionalist. I'm thinking he's a great counterbalance to an increasingly Progressive-Liberal Congress - one likely to be far further to the Left than now in 2008. Well, as Progressive a libertarian as I am, it's within the bounds of Constitutional limitations, and I think that's a necessary check on the enthusiasms of the Left.

But more importantly, we need leaders to remind us that this mess is the result of the vast majority of the citizenry ignoring their duty to be informed and to participate in some way in the national discourse. While I find Progressives and Liberals better informed in general, and with a realistic view of the errors of the other side, I am not therefore convinced their ideas are better - just perhaps less obviously bad.

There must be a means of ensuring that everyone's interests are guarded, not just those currently unscrewed by the party in power. I think a Libertarian Republican President will influence a Progressive Congress in the correct direction. But mostly I hope he serves to call the people to pay greater attention, and penalize such media that continues it's efforts to misinform and bamboozle the American people into indifferent and unpatriotic apathy.

Just as there are natural rights, there are corresponding natural obligations, duties and responsibilities. Liberty is not freedom from responsibility to others, and it's not even freedom from responsibility to deal with things outside of your ordinary scope of interest. As a free, honorable and ethical person, there are things that we must stand up for, recognizing that it may be at a cost to our own personal comfort, our store of wealth, comfort or even personal safety.

A Libertarian society will never be as "safe" as the warm wet diaper of those Siamese twins of statist rule, fascism and socialism. But in rejecting them as forms of government, let us not presume that they evolved merely as a means of placing power in the hands of a few. They both address real problems with certain social biases - and each can, at least theoretically, do so rather well and certainly more efficiently than a glorious anarchy.

Such "anarchy" is fearfully promised those so unwise as to consider the vision of a society that is truly "self governed" by those who fear either the ability of their neighbors to govern themselves or who prefer to compel them to do "the right thing" by force. But in practice, they needn't worry. Some form of organizing structure is needed, not just practically, but psychologically. True anarchy will never exist for long, and therefore we must aim for the least, best government possible. Part of it's entire raison d'etre is providing occupation for those who do need and desire power over others - while keeping a very close eye and a short Constitutional reign.

While there is no "natural right" to hold power over others but there is often the opportunity, and the capability and experience to do it well and enjoy the task does rather imply a duty to take it. Power is as often thrust upon those who fail to firmly enforce their unwillingness to so serve as it is hotly pursued.

Ain't that right, Mr. Gore?

But as I say, there is no "natural right" to be a Senator or for one party or another to be in power. They must earn that right, and keep earning it by using that power well to further the interests of the broad majority. Those who fail to understand that there is a quid pro quo here - and that would be the entire Republican Party Machine, absent a few stray and marginalized individuals here and there - will soon find themselves paying the price of abusing power in the name of keeping it without having earned it.

But those offices and duties will not go away. Whatever we may think of the job our elected officials are doing, there are damn few willing and qualified and wealthy enough to take those jobs on under the current conditions. Further, our current conditions damn near preclude being able to do any job other than hanging on to the job.

Let us therefore have mercy on those who are equipped to do it well by recognizing that those who have done much cannot reasonably and routinely be expected to do even more at higher levels of risk, cost and time. The founders intended Congress to be filled by citizens, and intended elective office to be an attainable goal at a sustainable cost to the individuals concerned. This may be accomplished by each of us delegating a little less personal power and individual responsibility, while gracefully accepting a little more assistance from our fellow citizens in meeting those obligations.

We here within the Blogosphere are broadly united in our contempt for the job government is doing - forgetting that it is our job, and we have delegated these people to do it, for good or ill. Since it is mostly ill, it's up to us to change that, and some of us will have to step up and do the work that must be done. To complain is to volunteer.

But that's pointless idealism absent any reasonable, simple and seamless means to achieve it. This is a point that most Libertarians (and republicans) seem to miss; if government is to govern less, Individuals must govern themselves MORE. What government does exist should have as it's primary goal making self-government as simple, routine and affordable as possible to as many people as possible.

I am a pragmatic libertarian; I do not automatically dismiss the idea of governmental mechanisms simply because they have been associated with various forms of statism. I simply observe that a tool does what the hand tells it to do, neither more nor less.

Whatever theory of government (or absence thereof), there are certain legitimate common concerns, and if your governing ideology denies the validity of those common concerns, the people will withdraw their consent. Once they have done so, a state may persist for some time via force and oppression, but in historical terms, any semblance of life is provided by maggots consuming the corpse from within. Therefore, the best governing ideology is "That which is constitutional, affordable and widely demanded."

If free men and women are expected to govern themselves, to behave as grownups and voluntarily exercise their duties as citizens, they must have direct access to some version of the actual mechanisms and institutions of state to use toward the common good.

Whatever we choose to call it, some form of universal assurance that the risks of assuming the duties of citizenship and the costs of what responsibilities may land in one's lap are acceptable risks and reasonable expectations. If we wish to dis-empower centralized government and return that authority to the people, the people must have the ability to achieve the same general ends as the centralized authority was created to accomplish. (Assuming, of course, that it was a good idea in the fist place.)

Since we cannot feasibly predict (nor have the right to presume) who can do what or who will succeed and who will fail, we should hedge our bets by investing in our collective security while doubling down on individual triumphs and innovations.

And with that viewpoint, existing government mechanisms as an array of services presented, delivered and indeed administered as a form of insurance becomes obvious, and the idea of government distributing a certain amount of the national GNP to citizens to be entrusted with starts making sense.

For instance, universal access to health care. Personally, I see this as both a moral obligation and one of collective self-interest, just as I see other linked services often dismissed as "evil welfare."

I have a contrary view - I want my fast-food provided by people who can afford to stay home and not sneeze into my cheeseburger! I want them able to afford to deal with the sniffles before their immune system starts giving up and allowing that sneeze to spread streptococci all over the salad bar. And frankly, I'd rather invest in a mom staying home to raise her kids to be responsible citizens than deal with the costs of her working 18 hour days and NOT raising them as best she can.

Our prisons are filled with products of that view of "personal responsibility," which is in fact the denial of the stark reality that in order to be truly responsible in the duties life hands us, we cannot always do so without help. Meanwhile, we have a gigantic bureaucratic organization which has the affirmative duty and presumption that people do not "deserve" help until they manage somehow to prove deserving. Even given how obviously expensive that presumption must be, it manages to cost about twice as much as you would expect. Or in other words, we pay more to say "screw you" to the poor than it would cost to make them less poor, less inclined to take stupid survival-level risks, and more able to take constructive risks, without fear of homelessness as the price of failure.

A working system of welfare, universal health care and unemployment insurance is not anti-business. At least, not according to the US, which tried to pressure Canada to abandon universal health care under GATT as an "unfair subsidy to business." To this I would add a universal free, well-funded education from kindergarten to the second year of Jr. College.

Other libertarians and Conservatives may howl at this, but I believe I have good reasons for it and I'm not precluding a voucher system - though I am in favor of mandatory standard civics and critical thinking curriculae. In order to function and tolerate a great deal of diversity without fragmenting, society needs a basis of common experience and understanding, as well as at least one common language.

All of these things (including universal education) actually remove large diffuse costs and hidden taxes and place them in one, simple, easily accounted pile labeled "the price of doing the national business." Having such a thing in place, we can contemplate serious tort reform too. There's another few billions not being sucked out of the economy in malpractice and liability insurance fees.

Any amount of money you have to pay in order to live your life or conduct your business is a tax. It doesn't matter if it goes to the government or is simply consumed a nickle here and a dime there in fees for this and compliance costs for that. So, anything we can do to reduce the overhead costs of business amounts to the same as a tax cut for business.

My vision is far more a change of attitude than of mechanism. You'd recognize the form of it as an old idea, a Guaranteed Annual Income. The difference in philosophy is this; it's not an "entitlement," it's a provision of means for each person to act more responsibly and more effectively than they could otherwise, with a strong social expectation that they will do so.

It would not be the whole federal budget, but it would be a significant chunk OF it.

Legislation is not needed to enforce this; custom, coupled with education in civic responsibility is far more powerful and far less arguable than legislation.

People do generally live up to or down to the expectations society has for them, and at the very worst, we have empowered a great number of people to stay out of prison.

In passing, and we also replaced block grants, various educational endowments, and the National Endowment for the Arts. All we need to do to achieve this is expect people to do what they ordinarly do with money; we trust people to either live on it, donate it, invest it or blow it on liquor - in all cases it will strengthen economies and causes they individually find important, and it will be done on a finer, more focused scale than pork-barreling and federal grants will permit. It eliminates the need for social security. We take the focus away from making an individual prove they need help and focus instead on the simplest possible means of raising the minimum standard of living tolerable to a civilized nation.

We could tax the principal back from people making above a certain amount, but perhaps (and I suspect this will be the case) we will have saved so much in overhead that it won't be worth the administrative costs of recovery. But we could claw it back in other ways as well. What if you could use that money AND any money you could demostrate had come from that money to fund legislation you favored? We do this by making a certain part of the federal budget into a "wish list" and leave funding those initiatives to the people themselves. Hell, it's not like we don't have the expertise.

We need mechanisms to efficiently alert those who seek a responsiblity to take it on. You are looking at it, and given that it exists, we don't need to re-invent the wheel.

We also need to abandon the idea that all things of value may be measured in money alone. Indeed, that's the very basis of a free market economy - if there were no intangible values, there would be huge sectors of our economy that would be completely unsustainable.

There are such things as overriding social value, such as empowering those who are accomplished at raising children to concentrate on that, while empowering those who suck at it to afford the services of those who are concentrating on raising kids.

Oh, gee; we just did that. And we didn't need a bureaucracy to accomplish it. Mom can afford to stay home, other moms can afford to pay her for daycare because the basics are covered.

The same applies to all sorts of things that need doing. Like say, dedicating one's life to reading legislation. It has a high degree of social utility, but finding a "sponsor" who is uninterested in influencing your conclusions is damn near impossible. So if someone wishes to live on GAIN plus tips and do that - let us not quibble.

Oh, and if we did that, we could abandon the minimum wage, therefore allowing people to choose to invest sweat-equity in small businesses in hopes they become successful. Let's remember that the worker is still worth his hire - and once they have the practical ability to tell the boss to "take this job and shove it," it becomes an inescapable fact.

And while not precluding unions, we have slashed the practical necessity for them. You won't NEED a union to go on strike. In one stroke, we will have eliminated wage-slavery. Of course, the worker will pay a price for such a choice - but there should be a price. We just made the price affordable.

Finally we must recognize the reality that a free society must paradoxically accommodate, tolerate and provide for those who are incapable of being free, either through some defect or inclination. There is no real freedom unless there is a freedom to barter that freedom away, and of course there are those who simply must be restrained to some degree for the safety of others.
In other words, libertarian philosophy has to recognize that people, while equal in the eyes of law and presumably in the eyes of whatever higher power or providence one may acknowledge are not therefore interchangeable, self-sufficient social cogs.

Capability in all areas of life is distributed with vast inequity, so none of us are truly capable of living in splendiferous Randian self-suffiency; not, at least, unless one defines "freedom" as being free do do exactly as one wishes, without expectation of doing anything at all about that one cannot do without help.

But this vision may in practice become far more true than not if we as a society facilitate the building of alliances between persons without predefining the "appropriateness" of those alliances from moralistic or state interest perspectives.

"Marriage" is a special case of such a social alliance, and the only one with the support and color of law. It's role in society is quite distinct from and separable from it's role in religion. It is in essence a simple, straightforward form of incorporation, division of risk and delegations of responsibility. Persons who are religiously married may, in fact, feel no actual need for social or legal acknowledgment or permission to be joined by the forms and rituals of their faiths.

Come to think of it, it's damnably presumptuous!

But such a mechanism is valuable enough that more people, not less, should have access to it without conditions other than being of great enough age and sound enough mind to give meaningful consent.

This has the potential to simply and straightforwardly address a good number of awkward social issues that government currently does nothing to help and a great deal to make worse.

Government should not in any case be passing judgment on the reasons people have for such contractual relationships beyond the usual scrutiny contract and common law demands. Who owes "conjugal duties" to whom, if anyone is really nobody's business unless you choose to make it part of the terms of a particular contract. It should be equally accessible to old folks who wish to pool their assets in order to avoid a nursing home and to five randomly selected young people who want to try to make a go as a band.

By reducing the risks of failure in social participation, innovation and entrepreneurship, spreading out the irreducible costs and and by giving people the means to network and build legally-recognized social alliances, we can afford to start dismantling institutions and organizations that have taken over duties traditionally assumed by families, churches, neighbors and towns. We will have increased the robustness of our society.

I believe that we as individuals deserve a government that if it shows up at all, shows up only to politely ask if we need it to lend a hand, and will go away if we do not.

I see the mechanism for this as the same mechanism by which this little essay has come to your attention. In order to function, there's no need that, say, a situation come to any particular person's attention - just that it comes to the attention of enough people who are empowered by their own sense of responsibility, knowing that they are not expected to do it out of sheer altruism and with no hope of recognition or reward. The United States of America is composed of millions upon millions of people, to the extent that we really can rely very heavily on random factors to address a great many more things than we do.

Whatever we call it, government, instrumentality or Fred, it must meet the test of all sane social organizations; it must serve the vast majority better than it's absence would, and at least arguably better than alternate visions.

Of course, there are caveats and obvious pitfalls. All systems have inherent flaws which means I can leave addressing them to another day. But the essential principle in addressing them is the same as the basis for the system itself. We don't try to failure-proof the system, we try to ensure that when and where it does fail, it fails safely.

I observe that little if any attention is paid in our nation in culture to fail-safeing anything until the necessity has been proven by some disaster. That the primary reason for that is the consequences of being overly reliant on the competence and honesty of our authorities at every level.

I would argue that "final authorities" are dangerous entities and should never be tolerated in principle, even if we accept a functional semblance of one in practice; authority must always be tested, questioned, examined and refined. In other words, we must expect demonstrably authoritative Authorities, and not encourage over-broad ones. That of course means that we have the collective and individual duty to become competant, respectable authorities at least within our own spheres of influence and areas of expertise.

It should be painfully obvious now that a man who can lead a team to political victory is not automatically qualified to lead an army to victory - or indeed, find "victory" with a map and a flashlight. Many of us find the President's failure as Commander in Chief astonishing. What I find remarkable is that so many other Presidents have managed to rise to the task. Consider that half of all military leaders do not succeed at this task by definition!

Within my vision, an authority is trustworthy simply because that trust is limited, discretionary and within demonstrated ranges of competence. Furthermore, that same trust is extended to in the same way, by the same means and to the same extent as it is to every other citizen. To the extent any given citizen demonstrates competence in a field, they are expected to contribute that expertise when available and if needed and if the fair market value of that contribution is over and above GAIN, they will gain more.

We have vast computational power at our disposal, we can write programs that will indeed evaluate every person's "authority" on any topic given any demonstrated interest in the topic.

After all, from a structural point of view, a welfare recipient, an FBI agent and a county clerk are all paid from the same pocket, yours and mine, and may all be seen in a certain jaundiced view as being "on welfare." They are living upon the largess of the public. The only question is, do their contribution justify their price? So let us all take a little bit of that stack and earn our minimum keep, realizing too that gaining more than minimum will be a provable and significant resume' line item.

By leaning less hard on our "elites," and by taking up more of the strain ourselves we are more responsible citizens and just incidentally, will have increased our national security by widely distributing the practical means of government so widely and redundantly that no possible disaster or attack could wipe it out.

We will have created a robust social safety net and made a significant dent in poverty and the the huge collateral costs of poverty. For most of us, it will take less time than we spend checking our email. For some of us, it could be a career. For many, it will be a rewarding and fascinating avocation - and we will all gain better government by being personally responsible for being better at some small part of the business of government.

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