Fuck the United States military. Several politicians have used rhetoric to the effect that we need to support 'our' troops, even if we are opposed to the war in Iraq. Many Libertarian personalities have agreed with this statement, at least to an extent. In short, they say, are not against the soldier himself, merely the way that the Commander in Chief is utilizing said soldiers. They don't want anyone to get hurt.

Well I do.
First off I should make a few things clear: I do not believe in any sort of states.  I am opposed to Socialism in all its incarnations, and any state is neccesarily socialistic to the extent it exists.  To tax for an army, even a small one only used for defense, is to utilize theft, slavery and violence to protect our rights against...theft, slavery and violence?  On the other hand I am opposed to many army practices in and of themselves: obviously I oppose any sort of draft, but I also oppose to mandatory tours of duty.  A man cannot sell his will.  It is inalienable, any contract that presumes the right to violently enforce a claim on the man's will (such as you will work for two years or be court marshalled) is a patent absurdity and contrary to any sort of Libertarian logic.  To quote Murray N. Rothbard "..in what other occupation in the country are there severe penalties, including prison and in some cases execution, for "desertion," i.e., for quitting the particular employment? If someone quits General Motors, is he shot at sunrise?"

Some people on certain other forums say that be that as it may, I fail to understand what makes a military 'tick'.  'Nothing beats putting a gun in someone's face and saying do it or else'[1], to quote one of the NeoCons on nvnews.net, from whence I was recently banned for stating a similar opinion to what I have here.  Let us assume for a moment (and I do not agree with this assumption) that in order to be effective a military force must impose compulsory service upon its members.  Even if that were the case (which I do not believe it is) I would still be opposed to it.  Aside from my vitriolic hate for States, I believe that "Any nation that cannot find enough volunteers to defend it among its citizenry does not deserve to survive."  Thus is a military force must use violence upon its 'volunteers' to make them defend the nation automatically loses any 'right' to do so.

I have met and personally known a great many people, and a fair number of military personell.  The average person is a terrible thing to spend any time with for a thinking, critical person and this is probably what lead Nietzsche and HL Mencken[2] in their diatribes (in the one case full of fury, in the other full of humour) against many popular conceptions of their age.  All in all the average human being is someone I have no respect for whatsoever, and the average soldier is no better in this matter.  Because of this I do not support the soldier who 'joined up to defend his country' or 'freedom'.  Joining the official violence arm of the State for such causes are, in the first bad and in the second moronicly misled.  The bad and the morons will get no sympathy from me.
It is also worth noting that the army could very, very easily refuse to comply with their commanders orders.  They have all the guns, after all.  But like the common citizen he is too conformist and weak to throw off his shackles by force, and probably too dull of mind to even realise he has shackles.

It would be quite a different matter if these were men who, using their own money or being paid by philatropists, went to fight the State of Saddam Hussein.  With this I would have no issue, in fact I would gladly cheer them on.  Such actions would indicate that the soldiers (or those paying for them) were people with virtue and consistent regard for private property.  I might even send them some money myself.  I applaud fighting of any State regime, anywhere in the world with whatever violence is called for (carpet bombing is not, however, called for).  Given the free choice, though, these soldiers and their masters would probably do nothing rather than spend their money, or risk their own lives, in a stand against such regimes.

For all these reasons I hope that every soldier in Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere else is shot dead.  Fuck your troops.

[1] This could be said equally of almost anything, such as impressing our particular ethical beliefs upon others.  I did not bother to make this argument since, as a NeoCon, he probably believes that would be apropriate.
[2] HL Mencken on Freedom and the Common Man: "All appeals to any intrinsic love of free speech are futile. There is no such passion in the people. It is only an aristocracy that is ever tolerant. The masses are invariably cocksure, suspicious, furious, and tyrannical. This, in fact, is the central objection to democracy: that it hinders progress by penalizing innovation and non-conformity."
and on the Soldier: "The average soldier...found in the Army a vastly more spacious life, with many of the privileges of a chartered libertine.... If he did a little stealing it was one of his privileges as a savior of humanity. If he was rough and brutal it was a sign of his fighting spirit. Moreover, he could look forward to distinction and respect for the rest of his life, with a long list of special privileges. In every community in America, however small, there are local notables whose notability rests wholly on the fact that they were once drafted into some war or other.... Their general intelligence is shown by the kind of ideas they advocate. They are, in the main, bitter enemies of the liberty of the individual, and are responsible for some of the worst corruptions of politics. The most grasping of all politicians is the war veteran."
Also see Homo Neanderthalensis

"Whoever wins ... We lose," runs the tagline for last week’s top-grossing movie, "Alien vs. Predator." That’s also the best description of the 2004 presidential election featuring Alien Kerry vs. Predator Bush." - Election 2004: Alieve Vs. Predator by John Seiler
This statement is accurate in several ways:  Firstly the candidates are both horrible, horrible people who shouldnt (and probably couldn't) run a Wendy's, much less the world's largest institution of organized crime (AKA the US Government).  Further it recognizes an even deeper truth about the democratic proccess: because of time-preference and personal lack of responsibility, voting actually promotes competition of 'bads'.  Those who rise higher and progressively more bad and at the office of President we have a competition of the most-bad people for the worst possible position they could be put into.

Simple knowledge of statistics, or basic logic for that matter, can easily prove the irrelevance of personal voting.  Even if voting were not bad, it would still be a non-productive activity:
Any act of personal voting neccesarily depends on the actions of others for 'success'.  When one votes the candidate one votes for will not win unless a majority of voters also vote for the same person.  However, since the vote requires a majority, the abstaining from voting has no impact upon the outcome of the vote: as I do not control the actions of others (which is further aggravated by the Secret Ballot) people will vote for one candidate or another, or fail to vote altogether, regardless of my action.  It is totally obvious that my actions in this case do not affect the outcome in any statistically relevant way (IE, any more than complaining about taxes will reduce my taxes) and thus one could vote at random or not vote at all and would end up with the exact same decisions.
This is proved further by the electoral 'recount' in Florida: the margins between candidates were in the thousands, and yet a recount was still demanded.  Even beyond that is the fact that, in America, an electoral college actually elects the president and plebicite is nothing more than an action to get an idea of who is favoured where.  Even further, in smaller elections, candidates are elected by district - a majority in one district counts as a 'vote' for a candidate, and even though one candidate may have overall higher votes the greater district spread of his opponent can cause him to fail to be elected.

Then we have the fact that even were a 'small government' candidate to get elected, such as a Libertarian or Constitutionalist (which would still depend upon majorities, leaving personal voting still irrelevant and would require that a majority had some sense of political vigilance, in direct contradiction to empirical observation), we would face the same practical problems that we face with demagogues now: What a candidate espouses he is in no way required to enact.  The success of Libertarians would simply cause the bipartisans to adopt Libertarian rhetoric and for real politicians (IE, professional liars) to infiltrate the Libertarian party.  Even if the Libertarians that get elected are Libertarians they still face a permanent bureaucratic class of non-elected officials whom have a vested interest in opposing the LP actions and, because it is their job to interpret and carry out government edicts, are in a position to do so quite well.  Further we would have to rely on Libertarians (or whatever) being able to resist the temptations of power that lead astray so many idealistic politicians.

In conclusion, people who vote are retarded.

I am so sick of being confronted with the moral opinions of writers who are otherwise very good at avoiding societal thought-traps.  Bertrand Russell, Murray Rothbard and David Friedman all have a bizarre fascination with normative theories, a concept which is, in itself, entirely hollow and nonsensical.  This is just as bad as the God damn Liberals and Rationalists being obesessed with Deism.

Give this bullshit up.  God is not real.  Morality is not real.

All that exists is physical reality: something happens, it does not happen.  There is no 'should'.  You like something, you dislike something, but there is nothing you 'should' like or dislike.

Why the fuck do people still believe this crazy bullshit?  My opinion is that people do not want to accept that their personal preferences are arbitrary, subjective whims.  They want to integrate their value scales into the fabric of the Universe.

I was browsing articles are Lewrockwell.com and I came upon a link to a Rolling Stone article by Matt Taibi.  In the article he mentions something he had once written, a piece entitled God Can Suck My Dick.  Needless to say I immediatly Googled such a promising looking article, and found that it was published in eXile - a Russian magazine I had discovered quite by accident just the night before.  Odd how things coincide like that, isn't it?  Here is an excerpt from the piece:

"Despite what you may think, God people are not just incredibly stupid. They're dangerous. They make possible every kind of human idiocy. Why? Not just because they tend to be zealots who try to force their point of view on other people (indeed, most religions consider non-believers lost or damned); not just because they do things like level the World Trade Center or strap dynamite to themselves and walk into abortion clinics to kill teenage girls they don't even know. No, the big problem with God people is that they make patent absurdities a central fact in the lives of entire populations, so that if anyone by chance wants to live a reasonable life, he has to do so in private, apologetically, like a man walking half bent-over through a crowded subway car because he has an erection in his pants."

Wonderful.

I am thinking of getting another rifle.  I'll probably buy a Cetme G3, but I may also get a Dragunov SVD to fill out the soviet theme.  On the other hand, who knows, maybe a shotgun is in order?

In other news I just now joined a neat message board that suits my version of Libertarianism much better than most LPer communities out there.
This is one of there siggies

Adorable, Awesome and a Good Idea all at the same time.