The Canadian Farce of Rights and Freedoms #2

Rights and Freedoms Permissions in Canada.

If you are a classically liberal thinker like myself you probably believe in the notion of unalienable rights, which is to say Rights as a precondition to living ones life as a man; To me and those like me rights are an intrinsic necessity to living as opposed to merely existing in this world.

Well, the talking heads that wrote and lawyered the Charter don't believe in Rights like that. As a matter of fact I don't think they believe in Rights at all, only the power of the state.

The second sentence of the Charter is called "Rights and Freedoms in Canada" now that is a tall order, or at least you would think it would be a hard thing to cram into a single solitary sentence but the sentence really has nothing to do with Rights and freedoms and everything to do with who will allow you, and when you will be allowed to have rights and freedoms.

It states in full; "The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society."

This is the first of many caveats in the Charter, and like all the others it is strategically placed to nullify any statement that could give the impression that Rights and Freedoms are a part of human nature as opposed to a permission granted to men at the whim of the state/government/some random constitutional lawyer.

Read that sentence. If you do so without mincing words you will immediately recognize its intent. Were you to simplify the sentence , boiling it down to its absolute meaning it would read... The Government has decided exactly what permissions you have to act and live your life and it will also decide when you will be permitted to do so.

In other words... your rights are what we say they are when we say they are.

So much for the "Guarantee of Rights and Freedoms".

The Canadian Farce of Rights and Freedoms

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a document that chains the people of Canada to a contradiction riddled and unapologetically statist perversion of the concepts of individual freedom and liberty.

"Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law:"

This is the first line of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

So, in a document that claims to innumerate and codify the rights and freedoms of the people of Canada the first sentence contains a statement which, if examined rationally and without compromise, would lead to such a host of contradictions that the whole thing ought to have been thrown out of any 1st year law class.

Principle is defined in part as; a fundamental, primary, or general law or truth from which others are derived:

If it is true that Canada recognizes the Supremacy of God then which God?

No, there is no scope here to quibble and claim as many progressively minded people do that the statement is a generalization regarding the spiritual nature of any and all belief in a supernatural deity or notion, because to claim that is to allow a multitude of contradictions.

Remember the word "principles"? Well religions in Canada - which are the earthy manifestation of "God" - who according to our charter is "supreme" - don't recognize or even allow the same principles to be exercised. While some sects of the Christian religion recognize in principle (and action) the right of two men or two women to marry, the Catholic God most certainly does not; and that is one of the more benign contradictions of the notion of "principle" that this fallacious statement incurs.

Who's principle wins?

What sort of principle (fundamental, primary, or general law or truth) if any is upheld?

If you claim that the sentence is merely a recognition of spirituality what principles do we hold as true and which ones are the ones our nation is actually founded upon?

If we as a society get to pick and choose which "principles" we allow our nameless, faceless, secular Deity-thing to actually count as our founding principles why do we bother even trying to shroud the first sentence of this aberration of Rights in a spiritual cloak in the first place?

As for the remainder of the sentence, I have no complaint with the principle of "the rule of Law". That is not to say that I don't have issue with the things that we have been saddled with as "Law" but I'll get into those points as I delve further into this despicable document.

Two Wolves and a Sheep

In parliament this week a long overdue bid to scrap Canada's long gun registry failed. This failure highlights the flaws in rational thinking on the part of Canadians just as much as the inherent abuses possible in a democratic system.

The greatest threat and failure of Democracy is the ability of 51% to vote away the rights of the other 49%. J.S. Mill and other heavy thinkers called this the tyranny of the majority. With the final vote on the registry tallied at 153 to 151, 50.3% of parliamentarians have indeed managed to dominate the other 49.7%.

The vote also shows the duplicity of politicians and the undue power political parties have in our system. MP's like NDP Peter Stoffer (Sackville-Eastern Shore) who promised to oppose the registry in accordance with his constituents wishes but who devolved into a partisan jellyfish at the threat of party disapproval. Then there are the countless Liberal MP's who were under orders from their leader Michael Ignatieff to vote the party line. It is hard to know how many of them voted in favour of their party and against their constituents but Ignatieff's praise of party unity ought to send a cold shiver down the spine of anyone who is interested in the preservation of political freedom and liberty in this country.

This isn't only a political failure though, it's a failure in critical thinking on the part of a lot of people.

Cast a critical eye at the original article. The inclusion of Elaine Lumley's story about her son Aidan's death is designed to pull at the heartstrings, but look at the facts. Aidan Lumley was shot and killed by an unknown assailant using a pistol in downtown Montreal. Pistols in this country have been restricted and registered weapons since 1935. This registry is for long guns only, the kinds of guns found predominately in the hands of law abiding farmers and hunters.

The Governments own statistics demonstrate just how wasteful this program has been. In 2009 all the murders committed in Canada in that year accounted for just 0.025% of crimes committed, and of that number only 1/3 were committed with a firearm. Due to the statistical information it is impossible to know how many were from long guns as opposed to pistols but I am willing to bet it was less than 1/3 of that total, so a little quick math has the homicide rate by long gun approximately at 0.0027 % of all crime in this country.

Even with the statistics above showing the almost infinitesimal percentage of crime committed with long guns the most salient point is that no crime has ever been prevented by demanding that the weapon used be registered. What do people think, that a criminal will say to himself... "Well I was going to kill the guy, but then I realized that my gun was registered so I thought I'd better not..." ridiculous!

Although rather tongue in cheek, this is something one should think of too...

Only By Permission

"A right is the sanction of independent action.
Only a slave acts on permission."
Ayn Rand

"Under a proper social system, a private individual is legally free to take any action he pleases (so long as he does not violate the rights of others), while a government official is bound by law in his every official act. A private individual may do anything except that which is legally forbidden; a government official may do nothing except that which is legally permitted."
Ayn Rand, The Virtue Of Selfishness (The Nature of Government)

In a totalitarian state the government monitors and controls all actions. No citizen may do anything unless permission has been granted, unless the action has first been proscribed as legal by the state.

We living in Canada and"the west" are truly and rightfully horrified at the prospect of this kind of control. But are we just evading our own reality?

No, we may not be subject to jack-booted special police or the watchful eye of shadowy men in trench-coats on the street corner, but more and more we are subject to the petty tyrannies of a multitude of bureaucracies.

From the grand machinations of our Federal government which acts more and more like an elected tyranny once the required votes have been secured, to the perfidious tentacles of the Canada Revenue Agency. From Provincial politicians pushing their "father knows best" agenda's at the expense of individual choice and freedom, to municipal councils passing ridiculous by-laws and forcing compliance for compliance sake.

This is what Ayn Rand meant by the ultimate inversion. Freedom isn't a permission granted by "societies" to individuals, when and if they feel like it. It is an unalienable right, possessed only by individuals, and that right extends to absolutes, to the extremes of taste, action, and speech.

The limit to our freedom is force. Our right to do anything is absolute so long as it does involve the initiation of force or fraud against another person.

Just as it is no indication of the right to freedom of speech when the speech itself is banal, it is no indication of property rights when your "rights" are limited to certain "approved" activities on your own property.

More and more in this country and others we, the individuals are restricted. More and more we act only by permission, and as benevolent or humane as that insipid control may be it is still tyranny, it is still evil.


PS
Two examples from this week...
Liberty Seminar Shut down
Toronto Bans Kite Flying

In Other News...

Rain falls, Dogs bark and alcohol is addictive and bad for your liver.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that Alcohol should be banned any more than I would suggest dogs be surgically prevented from barking. The point is that the inconsistent and incomprehensible application of prohibitions in law create more problems than they solve.

Let each and every man decide what it is that he wishes to do with his own body and mind. So long as there is no initiation of force or fraud the government ought to have as much say about what I eat, drink, smoke, snort or inject as it does over how often I have a good bowel movement.

Behind a Veil of Hypocrisy

There has been a lot of noise lately about banning burkas, and it is all wrong.

Most of the articles cite security concerns, or the fact that the burka is a medieval form of misogynistic discrimination. Or the claim is made that there is nothing in the Islamic religion that demands the burka to be worn, and that is used as a justification for prohibition.

All of these “reasons” are ridiculous, counterproductive and contrary to individual rights.

The security issue as presented is only an issue if the appropriate security agency does not validate that the person under the veil is in fact who they say they are. Most airports have private rooms where a female security agent can take the individual in question so that their identity can be confirmed against their passport photo.

In the event that the person under the burka refuses to be so identified then it is up to the security agent to stand by its reasonable request (and against the inevitable knee-jerk of political correctness and possible threats of violence) and deny that individual the privilege of boarding the aircraft, or gaining access into the country, whichever is the case.

Such a policy applied uniformly to any and all passengers or entrants, would soon become known and accepted by all. It is the unequal application of a weak policy or selective screening that exasperates and perpetuates the problem.

The complaint that the burka is discriminatory is a moot point. Although as a rights respecting society we should watch out for rights violations - the initiation of force or fraud - against anyone it is completely and utterly impossible to make a claim of it without proof.

If a woman in a burka were to complain to a police officer that she was being forced under threat of violence to wear a burka then in that case there would be something that could be done, using existing laws and procedures. With help she could remove herself from that abusive relationship and the person who is threatening her with harm could be charged. But without that sort of proof we must operate on the presumption that her actions are her own, and she has chosen to wear the burka. To do otherwise, and ban the garment, regardless of the good intentions or the misgivings of the majority (or even a vocal minority) would be idiotic, illiberal and heavy handed.

The third complaint is really not a reason at all but a fuzzy headed kind of logic to which predominately religious and conservative opponents cling when all their other arguments have been ignored. It is nothing less than the cry of the closeted racist… “But they don’t have to wear it so why don’t they just dress like normal people… They should have to.”

It isn’t the burka. The burka doesn’t make a woman a terrorist, its not a sign of oppression or abuse, and it doesn’t matter that it is not a necessity of the religion.

If you can not grasp these simple concepts imagine outlawing baggy pants because they made every kid a gang-banger, or jeans and a halter top because they signify abuse and degradation or imagine if crucifixes were prohibited just because there was nothing in the bible that said they aught to be worn…

Your Body, Their Choice.

Whether Dr. Zamboni is a snake oil salesman or not. Whether his procedure is a real treatment or a fake, tested and proven or unproven and untested, the fact remains that the government ought not to be in the business of prohibiting or condoning what rational people in the maturity of their faculties do with their own bodies.

Don't Just Let Them Speak, Let Them be Heard...

Canada and Canadians have missed a huge opportunity by banning Dr. Zakir Naik from speaking in person in Toronto at "The Journey of Faith Conference".

We should have let him come, more than that we should have put someone inside that conference to video the entire thing, every speech and every speaker.

Because maybe if Joe and Jill six-pack heard one of these people claim that "every Muslim should be a terrorist," or that it's okay to beat your wife - without leaving a physical mark of course (how very moderate of him) they would realize that this is an ideology of hate and fear and that every single person in that conference is a supporter implicitly or explicitly of the destruction of our way of life.

For those that would call me intolerant I say thank you. I have no desire to develop a tolerance for evil, or the cattle that follow it.

Lessons in Socialism

There is a phrase that I use at work from time to time to illustrate and explain the apparent laziness of those people who seem to have the easiest of jobs but who fail, again and again to do them efficiently or correctly. Unfortunately the phrase has proven correct more often than I care to remember.

The truism? “The less people do the less they want to do.”

I’ve used it time and again but I’ve never thought of it as being applicable to an entire society or an entire social system. It is.

This is a lesson in socialism and Theodore Dalrymple has it learned well.

Right, For all the Wrong Reasons

Irvin Studin’s idea to increase immigration into Canada is a good one, but although he momentarily catches sight of why it is a good idea when he says, “The Canada of 100 million has a far larger national market and the attendant economies of scale and scope…” this is a mere afterthought for him.

To Mr. Studin, hailed as something of a public policy wonder-kid, the prime reason to open immigration and increase Canada’s population is to “build strong national institutions and structures across the vast territory of Canada -- institutions that, while today are often absent or weak, would eventually serve as a bulwark for international strategic influence. Second, a far larger talent pool to populate the strategic arms of the state -- the military, diplomatic, civil service and political branches of government, as well as business, cultural, educational and scientific sectors.”

If you read the entire article it becomes quite clear that Mr. Studin’s intent is solely focused on increasing the power of the state both within and outside of Canada.

He envisions some sort of superpower which will simultaneously see the Canadian people held from cradle to grave by the “strategic arms of the state” and witness the rise of Canada as an international military and diplomatic force, with emphasis on the force part.

This is exactly the wrong reason to increase immigration and Studin's plan which counts on immigration as a force in and of itself is exactly the wrong way to go about it.

I agree that Canada ought to open up immigration and have it limited only for national security reasons, to prevent the spread of infectious diseases or to keep criminals out. But there is something else that must be done first.

First we should begin to dismantle the so called social safety net. The reason why we should do this ought to be self-evident. We want people to come to Canada to work. We want them to come here for the opportunity to succeed and thrive in a country that offers them more freedom to achieve than the one they just left.

Consider the United States in its early history. Immigrants didn’t flock to America for social services or “strong national institutions”, they came for the opportunity to be free and to make their own way in the world. As a result of that “pioneer spirit” the USA went from upstart colony to world superpower in less time than Mr. Studin could imagine in his wildest public policy wet dream.

Once we have ensured that immigrants won’t be coming to Canada to turn the “social safety net” into a hammock there is another step we must take before we can open the flood gates, and be reasonably assured that those that come will be those that want the freedom that we can offer, the freedom to prosper.

Now with immigration comes the economic benefit of all those added people. Mr. Studin continues to apply all this human power to “applied research institutions; to aid the generation of policy ideas; to create bona fide national institutions of higher culture in the musical, visual and theatrical arts; to justify national sports leagues” but he seemingly ignores the very thing that makes all of that possible… Individual economic activity.

To make this immigration plan work you can not just dump a bunch of people onto the land and expect great cities to rise, or… well you could if no one was going to get in their way… but sadly Canada is an over-regulated, politically restrictive pseudo-capitalist, bureaucratic welfare state.

So step two, before immigration can be opened up with any realistic hope of creating the wealth and its serendipitous cousin the power - that Mr. Studin so fervently desires - is to begin dismantling the bureaucracy. We would need to get the government at all levels out of the way of the people who actually make that wealth and power a possibility.

The best way to accomplish this would be to have, as Ayn Rand put it in her brilliant collection of essays The Virtue of Selfishness, “a separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church..” . Initially, however, I think we could go a long way by eliminating superfluous regulations, business taxes and the sort of nickel and dime, money wasting red tape nightmares that make it so hard to open and run a business today.

Sure it will mean that consumers will have to be more aware of the services and goods they contract and consume, (with lessened regulation I am not so naive to think that some unscrupulous men won’t try to cheat and defraud) but that is part and parcel of being free. Besides we are not talking about eliminating the courts or police services and such frauds should be held to account by the law.

So now with the social safety net severely curtailed if not gone completely, and our bureaucracy restricted to the absolute bare minimum, Irvin Studin’s proposal for increased immigration could be implemented with reasonable chance of success.

Although this would no doubt lead to more economic, political and international clout for Canada I doubt that with the reduced scope of “strong national institutions” and the reduction or elimination of “strategic arms of the state” that Mr. Studin would recognize or appreciate the change.

Capitalism isn't the Problem... Its the Solution

This is the kind of thinking that the majority of people don't do.

Fighting for Freedom (The new American Revolution)

After months of trickery, bribes, backroom deals and outright lies, the Healthcare bill passed in the Congress yesterday.

American's will now have to fight for their freedoms.

The question is how to do so?

The answer seems so stunningly simple and obvious; massive civil disobedience against government healthcare. Do the ruling elites have the ability to function if two million TEA partiers refuse to pay income tax or buy "mandated" insurance? How about five million or so FOX viewers? How about 20 million Rush Limbaugh listeners? Courts would be paralyzed, all government functions would be shut down and there are not enough ACORN and SEIU brownshirts to enforce obedience (I doubt they are more than fair weather friends who would melt away at the first serious sign of opposition anyway).

As America goes so do we in Canada (and the rest of the world), so we need to see that light of freedom. Keep up the good fight.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

W.E. Henley

Say No to "Fair Trade"

I've always avoided "fair trade" products, equating them with collectivism and anti-industrialists, this article proves my assumptions correct.

Capitalism and freedom remain the best and surest road to prosperity.

H/T Diana at Noodlefood

They Have No Right(s)

It ought to be called "The Canadian Charter of Desires and Permissions" because Rights and Freedoms don't enter into the equation...

"The court acknowledges that the law violates the rights of parents and children. The court acknowledges that if the law is read as written any attempts to achieve the same result as the offending law will violate those same rights. The court says, we won’t read the law that way next time if you change the wording to something nicer. "

read the whole thing

Getting away from it all; why we really need to find Galt's Gulch

The real problem is we are constrained. No matter where you go, you will always be in the reach of others, most of who are determined to make sure you pay your fair share of their entitlements. The siren call of living off the means of others continues to be the number one enemy of freedom, and indeed, there is little that can be done, since it is a rational choice for an individual to attempt to shift their burdens onto someone else.  It is also rational to attempt to dominate others by force if you wish to take their wealth for yourself; Socialism and Warlords are really just different facets of the same thing.

Personal "Galt's Gulches" are quite possible, and I have blogged on this subject in the past. A virtual "New Atlantis" based on Internet connectivity may also be possible, especially if the medium of exchange is something mutually agreed upon by the members (trading useful information and barter may not be as efficient as cash, but is certainly less accessible to the agents of the State).

No, the solution must involve escaping entirely from the clutches of the State, but also in leaving a beacon for like-minded people to follow. In the present day and age, we have a destination: space.

Since the 1980’s, a large and growing body of science and literature has been devoted to the problems of settling in the environment of outer space. Much of this is actually recycled, amazingly, thinkers like Konstantin Tsiolkovsky were writing on the subject as early as 1903. Most of the ideas have simply been refined with the addition of a century of scientific and technological development. Today we are on the threshold of actually achieving inexpensive spaceflight. Private companies like “Virgin Galactic” have working prototypes of commercial spacecraft that can bring people to the edge of space, and developments like IEC Fusion (being developed by EMC2 Energy) will bring cheap energy which can be harnessed for propulsion beyond Earth Orbit.

So, what's the problem? A society with access to cheap energy (which can be generated in theory by low cost devices that determined individuals or small companies can produce) would seem to be the definition of an Earthly paradise. The real problem is that while the powers of the individual could be increased, the power of the State could increase overwhelmingly. As well, vast increases in available luxury and wealth would be used to bribe the "sheeple" and keep them quiet in the face of an ever increasing "soft tyranny". 

New horizons are needed to draw the best out of people, and inspire those who by accident or design are unable to follow. The end of the middle ages in Europe came not when the New World was discovered (for the nth time) but when it was publicized: (Via Instapundit)

HAPPY COLUMBUS DAY: Many in the West will demonstrate their fierce originality and intellectual independence today by condemning Christopher Columbus using the same shopworn cliches they used last year. For those of a different bent, I recommend Samuel Eliot Morison’s Admiral of the Ocean Sea : A Life of Christopher Columbus, which takes a somewhat different position. Here’s an excerpt:

At the end of 1492 most men in Western Europe felt exceedingly gloomy about the future. Christian civilization appeared to be shrinking in area and dividing into hostile units as its sphere contracted. For over a century there had been no important advance in natural science and registration in the universities dwindled as the instruction they offered became increasingly jejune and lifeless. Institutions were decaying, well-meaning people were growing cynical or desperate, and many intelligent men, for want of something better to do, were endeavoring to escape the present through studying the pagan past. . . .

Yet, even as the chroniclers of Nuremberg were correcting their proofs from Koberger’s press, a Spanish caravel named Nina scudded before a winter gale into Lisbon with news of a discovery that was to give old Europe another chance. In a few years we find the mental picture completely changed. Strong monarchs are stamping out privy conspiracy and rebellion; the Church, purged and chastened by the Protestant Reformation, puts her house in order; new ideas flare up throughout Italy, France, Germany and the northern nations; faith in God revives and the human spirit is renewed. The change is complete and startling: “A new envisagement of the world has begun, and men are no longer sighing after the imaginary golden age that lay in the distant past, but speculating as to the golden age that might possibly lie in the oncoming future.”

Christopher Columbus belonged to an age that was past, yet he became the sign and symbol of this new age of hope, glory and accomplishment. His medieval faith impelled him to a modern solution: Expansion.

A community of people who are fully engaged in bringing new worlds to life will certainly develop a much different view of life and society than indolent masses who are being kept like fattened sheep in a pen. Where every hand at the wheel is important, the habits of hard work, thrift and planning become paramount, much like frontier society during the colonization of North America between the 1500’s and the closing of the frontier in the 1870’s. Even today, much of the difference between cultural conservatives and liberals can be traced to the environment: conservatives tend to live in small towns and rural environments, while liberals tend to live in cities. Far less surplus wealth exists in the countryside to feed populations of moochers, and those who do live that lifestyle often do so at the expense of family and friends who agree to provide support.

There are fewer extremes of wealth as well in such environments, allowing people to deal with each other as equals, rather than as masters and servants. While ideas like an “elect” might never die out, the ability to constantly expand to new environments and harvest new resources will provide an endless counterbalance:

Morison’s book is superb, and I recommend it highly as an antidote to the simplistic anti-occidental prejudice of today — which, as Jim Bennett has noted, has roots that might surprise its proponents:

This is primarily an effect of the Calvinist Puritan roots of American progressivism. Just as Calvinists believed in the centrality of the depravity of man, with the exception of a minuscule contingent of the Elect of God, their secularized descendants believe in the depravity and cursedness of Western civilization, with their own enlightened selves in the role of the Elect.

Don't Ever Forget

*

What if Milton Friedman was addressing America's schoolchildren?

Although a President making an address to schoolchildren should not seem controversial, President Barack Obama has managed to arouse a great deal of resistance and opposition to his planned address.

The controversy isn't so much about the remarks of the address (which, being pitched to children, is relatively mild and uncontroversial in of itself), but the larger context of how the administration operates in general and the crude and ill conceived "learning package" that was planned to go with the speech, a package for America's schoolchildren which has all the hallmarks of indoctrination.

Perhaps it would be better if schoolchildren everywhere were to hear from notables like Milton Friedman. I pulled this gem from "Dr Helen":

I would rather think that the words of Milton Friedman from his book Capitalism and Freedom make more sense:

"The paternalistic 'what your country can do for you' implies that government is the patron, the citizen the ward, a view that is at odds with the free man's belief in his own responsibility for his own destiny. The organismic, 'what you can do for your country' implies that government is the master or the deity, the citizen, the servant or the votary. To the free man, the country is the collection of individuals who compose it, not something over and above them. He is proud of a common heritage and loyal to common traditions. But he regards government as a means, an instrumentality, neither a grantor of favors, and gifts, nor a master or god to be blindly worshipped and served.

Now there is a lesson we can all get behind

Update: Obama's Brownshirts Want Your Information

Seems the Obama administration is going to do a bunch of data mining from popular social networking sites. This initiative has an Orwellian feel to it. As one friend pointed out on FB, it bodes ill for both freedom of speech and freedom of association.

This, coupled with the other recent activities of America's first Socialist Government has some of our rights respecting southern cousins seeing Red, White and Blue.

H/T: Kelly

The on line world, cont.

As readers know, my interests have been along the lines of how Objectivism and Libertarianism have become social rather than political movements, and how to migrate to a virtual "Galt's Gulch" in order to live, work and dream in privacy without the busybodies of the State interfering with our lives. (Far better the agents of the State were to concentrate on their real jobs of protecting our lives and property from theft and fraud...).

Next Big Future has an interesting post here on the idea of transhumanism as applied to libertarian thought. For those of you who havn't come across this idea before, many futurists, science fiction writers and others maintain that advances in technology and biology will allow the human race to trancend current limits and achieve a physical utopia free of current problems and wants.

Ideas such as nanotechnology, highly advanced computers and artificial intelligence and genetic engineering do have the potential to eliminate scarcity and poverty in the world, and allow ordinary people access to the sorts of tools that are currently only in the reach of governments today. This is a two edged sword, of course. Being able to fabricate a spaceship and go to the asteroid belt is a positive, but the same technologies also allow you to build an ICBM and take personal action against a foreign regime you may not like.

It occurs to me that much of what we see in politics is a reaction to this sort of thinking (however diffused and unorganized). Politics is defined in organizational theory as a means of allocating limited resources. In the transhumanist libertarian universe, there are no limited resources (besides natural limits set by physics), hence there is no need for politics as usually defined. Why do we need a CRTC to allocate limited bandwidth, when there is effectively unlimited bandwidth through the Internet? The world produces more than enough agricultural produce to feed everyone, famines are caused by government actions that distort markets or actively embargo food distribution for military or ideological purposes. Other examples can be thought of by the preceptive reader.

What we are seeing is a process of limiting access to resources by political entities in order to maintain control. Bureaucratic entities like the CRTC float trial balloons to limit the sorts of information available on the Internet in a very public way. Other groups act like "Brownshirts" and attempt to drive competing ideas from the public square, as this example shows. "Cap and Trade" and associated "Climate Change" hysteria is designed to frighten people and make inexpensive access to energy, manufactured goods and services too expensive to afford for the masses.

So how do we respond?

Transhumanism is a very high tech idea and would require the resources of innovative corporations and the mass market to develop quickly and effectively. However, lots of low to mid tech resources exist in the here and now that allow the determined person to partake of relative abundance in the comfort of their own households. Everything from hydroponic gardening to using rain barrels to catch unmetered water, investing in high efficiency appliances to schooling yourself to turn off and unplug "instant on" devices reduces you dependance on outside resources and agencies without necessarily depriving you of a lifestyle of relative abundance.

Busybodies of the State will still attempt to harass you, for example citing zoning laws or launching complaints to take up your valuable time.  This is where you can become involved in the political process, and at a level that you, the reader have much influence. I am suggesting that applying anti-politics to your lives and engaging in the political process at the municipal level will provide the means to break down the overwhelming control of the State.

Anti politics (removing or reducing your dependance on the municipal grid and services) reduces the tax revenues of the State, provides an example for your friends and neighbours to follow and even co-ops some of the memes that the Statists use to attempt to control your lives.

Being active in municipal politics is doable for the majority of people, and the results can be imediate and very gratifying (rolling back intrusive bylaws and ordinances, for example).

Perhaps this is not as much fun as prospecting in the rings of Saturn or sea steading in the Earth's oceans, but it is doable, and it is possible for all of us, today.

Freedom is a self help project!