Life and Discipline

I came across an interesting post by Dr Gary North in which he covers the development of task discipline beginning at a young age. Every parent should read this and every young person should have this or some similar system of task discipline in place by age twelve. Task disciplines are tools for achieving a goal, not ends of themselves. Don't get tripped up by this.

My favorites and some of which I already have a variation of:
  Adopt this as your criterion for decision-making: "Something is better than nothing."
  Adopt its corollary: "You can't beat something with nothing."
  Adopt its other corollary: "There is no such thing as a free lunch."

  When you receive a gift, say "thanks." It cost the gift-giver something.

  Do not use debt to buy anything that depreciates. 

A few of my own:

  Never marry your second choice; you are better off single if you cannot marry your first choice.  A second

  choice spouse will set you back twenty-five years and break your spirit.    

What is spoken inside the home always remains in the home....no exceptions.

Always be truthful, if at times you cannot be honest then be silent.

If someone sets a trap for you then be still until they snare themselves.

Respect and trust are difficult to earn and once lost never fully regained.

Never speak to your spouse when touching will better communicate your intent.

Beyond Book Covers

I was recently asked to concisely and simply state the significant differences between Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Roman Catholicism. It took some time but then a memory bubbled up to the surface. In Phoenix, AZ, there is a Christian community named Our Lady of Sorrows Roman Catholic Church and in San Francisco, CA, there is a Christian community named Holy Virgin Cathedral-The Joy of all Who Sorrow.

Fairly sums up the difference, I think.

Interior of Holy Virgin Cathedral

Starting Over-It's Deeper Than You Realize

In an effort to achieve liberty, peace, a voluntary society, and a solution to the the degenerative progressive culture that now exist, many people turn to alternative systems of social organization. This is at worst a step in a better direction. Sadly, most still don't realize just how far they must truly travel to achieve their goal.  Worse still-most are able but unwilling, or rather lack the will, to do the work.

In order to overturn and reverse the sharp cultural degradation that has occurred among mankind a profound understanding and a profound change must occur. Not merely a removal of the state or forces of government--this is nice rhetoric and it gets people's attention but it has as much depth as a sheet of paper. It actually says very little and does even less. In order to advance past this current sad excuse for human society, men must completely overturn not simply every notion but the very notion of how man interacts with man. We must kill and burn the old and start over.

In reading you can come across the mechanics of turning away from aggression and violence and towards a voluntary way of dealing with your neighbor. These include Rothbard and Hoppe but to understand what really must be done and what it may appear to be afterwards then read  Shaffer and Wright.  All of humanity, if it is to be freedom from the violence of the neighbor must abandon everything and be ready for an existence entirely, completely alien to what we have today.

Only the remnant will remain.  They will be few, they will have no need for us or our notions. They will never look back.

The Mouth of the Lion of Indifference

The emptiness has always been with man but even now in this age has accelerated beyond measure. People sit in their chairs and type into a machine digital swords, shapeless, vapid, without an ability to affect. Billions of ones and zeros hurdled towards an enemy devoid of confirmed form. We empty what little of humanity is left in our sad and brittle selves.

We are broken almost from birth, our hearts scrubbed clean and with all the marrow of our nous removed by an institution that is founded upon the pillars of violence, theft, and a hatred for anything that is not fleshly. We are taught to fight and hate our neighbor, that envy and greed are the foundation all that is the highest in humanity.  In order to reclaim that which was taken the indifference must be left behind.

The starting is here and after that the beginning is here .  Death to the world.

Libertarianism--For Libertarians....Can We Talk

Lately there is a rise in the number of people that refer to themselves as libertarians.  While this is generally a good thing, as it heralds a rise in the awareness of liberty--the down side is added mud in the water.  There are some basic terms that are associated with mere libertarianism that warrant fundamental understanding--these are ( in no particular order ) aggression, coercion, force, thinness, and thickness. So let's start, shall we.

I know of no well-grounded libertarian that objects or denounces the use of coercion; for coercion is a type of force. Aggression on the other hand is the so called initiation of force and this what I suspect most libertarians have trouble with; the difference between aggression and coercion.  It is never wrong to use coercion to repel an aggressor.

Thin and thick labeling in libertarianism, I believe, is a bit dramatized especially by people attempting to create a niche in the movement for themselves. Thickness has nothing to do with whether someone must believe in additional values or views in order to be a libertarian. Thickness states, simplified, that you hold additional values qua libertarian. That is to say being a libertarian, in that capacity, necessitates additional values. 
---note: Interestingly, while I do not agree with the thickist application I do believe that it is not enough to merely hold to thin libertarianism.

One more area that needs to be cleared up for many new or not-yet-well-read libertarians has to do with economics. Strictly speaking libertarianism is a political philosophy that is concerned only with the proper use of force and the proper assignment of property rights. It does not deal with economics in a direct sense. Specifically, most 'right' libertarians follow either the Austrian or Chicago school of economics while most 'left' libertarians follow some form of left wing economics. Theoretically you do not even need to follow economics in order to hold libertarian views; however, it's much better as a libertarian to have a strong foundation in good economics.


Further reading:
The Problem with “Coercion”

Libertarianism through Thick and Thin

Libertarianism and Social Structure

I ascribe to libertarianism, which basically means that I don't know what is best for you so I'm going to leave you alone. For a more detailed understanding of libertarianism start here.  I believe that libertarianism is strictly a political system and requires of you nothing else in order to adhere to it. Some would say this makes me a thin libertarian but really it just makes me a libertarian. For more on what plumb-line, standard libertarianism represents you should go here.

That aside, everyone adheres to some social system and maintains some notion of what constitutes proper culture and how it should be transmitted from one generation to another. I would describe myself socially, culturally as a paleo, a traditionalist. For a long while now, I have held to the belief that historical western civilization brought about the highest and most profound improvement in the human condition throughout knowable history. This cannot be rationally dismissed. It does tend to rub against the modern political zeitgeist but often times the more naked the truth the more the darkness screams out against it.  I have always struggled to find a concise way to define this belief, no short way around a long fence line as it may be said. In steps the neoreactionary movement.

I claim no real expertise or extensive knowledge of neoreactionary philosophy. As I can best understand it is not a grandly unified "big tent" philosophy but really a confederated pooling of three sometimes complementary and sometimes conflicting approaches. Basically it proposes that where we all are at is very wrong, we're killing ourselves by killing off the best and brightest, and it must all be burned down and we must go backward in order to start over fresh in the future. Or something close to this, I think. If you want a very short primer on neoreaction then read on here and here.

Generally neoreaction falls into three broad categories: traditionalist, technocapitalist, and ethnonationalist (my terminology). As an anarchocapitalist (austro-anarcho-libertarian), I can firmly plant my feet in the capitalist area and as a paleo/traditionalist I also fall into the traditionalist area. Now I am not attempting to reconcile neoreaction to libertarianism or Austrian Economics and I am certainly not declaring any personal abandonment of anarchocapitalism for neoreaction. I am, however, interested in where my own personal thoughts on social structure and culture overlap with it.

 I can deeply identify at least with the traditionalist and technocapitalist within neoreaction and while I maintain a profound respect and sense of pride in my racial heritage, as an anarchist I resist nationalistic attitudes. Said differently, I believe in an ararchistic world social/cultural communities would evolve based mostly but not necessarily exclusively on genetic familiarity. Hence, my long standing quip that the blood clan is everything.

If politics is important, and it is, then the way in which we transmit the notions of politics also carries great weight. Social structure and culture matter.