Seventeen quick thoughts (each with a link) as we survey the
end of the post-Cold War Republican Party.
•TRUMP: IN. This week might look like “anarchy” (in the loose colloquial sense) at the Republican National Convention, but yesterday, the day of Trump’s official nomination, was also the
twentieth anniversary of an important (and schismatic) date in the history of real
anarchism, as I’ll explain below. In this year when the presidential nominee of
one major U.S. political party dabbles in conspiracy theorizing about Obama’s
birth, 9/11, and the JFK assassination, while the nominee of the other major
party promises UFO disclosure, anarchism should not be dismissed as the
weirdest branch of U.S. politics anymore. It may prove a more fruitful avenue
of future intellectual inquiry than were conservatism and liberalism, in any
case.
•JOHNSON: SERIOUS. Meanwhile, the candidate of the Libertarian Party, which most years is seen as having a weirder candidate than the two major parties, avoids conspiracy theories and merely jokes
that having been a successful two-term governor of New Mexico gave him a chance
to see the “alien to work” program near Roswell. Obviously, if you’re voting,
you have to vote for him.
•AILES: OUT. Speaking of twentieth anniversaries, we’re just
a few months from the October 7 twentieth anniversary of Fox News’s launch, and
it now appears that Roger Ailes may not be there to celebrate. Having worked there briefly, I’ll be very curious whether the culture at
the place changes now.
•MILO: BANNED. Again, we libertarians are not necessarily
inclined to conspiracy theory, but it’s an awfully odd coincidence that
yesterday appeared to bring Trump’s triumph, Ailes’ possible end, and Trump-supporting
Milo Yiannopoulos’s lifetime banning from Twitter. It was his mockery of
actress Leslie Jones that did it, apparently, so he’s been taken down by the
Ghostbusters, just like Gozer (or perhaps that just served as a timely excuse for the left/black/Muslim-sympathizing culture at Twitter). He now becomes only the second person, to my knowledge, who is banned for
life from Twitter -- and I’m friends with the other one because I know good
people.
•VIKINGS: BLACK. I wish people would just stay off the
volatile topics of race and religion, but if you ask me, the real ethno-hubbub
on the pop culture horizon is the portrayal of an honest to gosh Norse Valkyrie goddess by a black woman in next year’s Thor movie. That should be a real test
of self-control for the pagan-leaning racist elements of the alt-right. You
heard it here first: Ragnarok arrives
Nov. 3, 2017.
•DAILY SHOW: ASSAULTING. But don’t assume it’s the Milos of
the world who cause all the trouble. It was Daily Show staffers who were
accused of shoving a reporter at a Milo-instigated gay party at the Republican National Convention, so who are the fascists, really?
•DENTON: BANKRUPT. Financially, I mean, not just morally. Or
so the Gawker founder claims.
•HAUSAM: INTERVIEWING. Me, that is. Mike Hausam had me on his California radio show on July 11, 2016 to talk about my book and libertarianism generally.
•ANARCHISTS: DIVIDED. Even Hausam, a libertarian, stumbled
for a moment at the unfortunate, obscure label for libertarians of my specific
philosophical type – “anarcho-capitalists” -- but the traditional, left-leaning
anarchists know (and mostly hate) us, at least. In fact, because time flies,
yesterday was the twentieth anniversary of An Anarchist FAQ, the first major stab at an official online explanation of anarchism, and it was
largely created by old-fashioned anarchists to distance themselves from anarcho-capitalists like me who think
libertarianism and capitalism are
more logical expressions of anarchist sentiment than egalitarianism and socialism are. Nice to be noticed, though.
•PUNK: CONFUSING. You should also take note of the fact that
the Anarchist FAQ founder, Iain McKay, is not
the same person as Fugazi singer Ian MacKaye, though it'd be kinda cool if they were the same person, and I'm sure this
has led to confusion at some point.
•SILVERSTEINS: COMMONPLACE. There’s also, by the way, both a
Forbes writer and a Nation writer named Ken Silverstein, which must cause some confusion.
•SEAVEY: SPECIAL. Maybe I can’t quite call myself an
anarchist without creating confusion, since I believe we need property rights, as
explained in my book Libertarianism for Beginners. What I lack in willingness to ditch all moral and commercial rules
alongside the eminently ditchable government, though, I make up for with a
thoroughgoing skepticism useful against advertisers, priests, unreflective
traditionalists, shallow fellow skeptics, and even you if you say something
stupid.
•CAPITALISM: AMBIGUOUS. As if it weren’t confusing enough
that people argue about who qualifies as an anarchist, anarchists in turn argue
about how to define “capitalism” and whether that terminology in turn affects
collaboration among anarchists. This article brought to my attention by Camilo Gomez is a fairer than usual summary of
the “capitalism”/“markets” distinction that is important to some left-leaning
anarcho-capitalists in particular (though in these situations, I usually urge
just adopting new terms or agreeing upon clarified old ones instead of wallowing
in the ambiguity and the linguistic tug-o-wars).
•DEMOCRATS: OVERRATED. To those of you too easily convinced
that infighting among anarchists, libertarians, or Republicans proves the
Democrats, who are gathering at their own convention next week, are the smart, sane ones, I will just note that despite the great job the Democrats do of convincing
themselves that rational, well-educated people lean Democrat, the majority of
college-educated whites (for whatever little it’s worth) haven’t voted Democrat
for president in the sixty years since demographic polling of that sort started
tracking such things, despite how things may look if you inhabit some lefty
college town bubble. In fact, Bush was the first Republican presidential candidate
to get a bigger share of the non-college-educated than Democratic rivals, not
necessarily something to be proud of, and Trump may well lock up the downright-stupid
vote this year -- to the Republicans’ long-term regret, I suspect.
•DEATH: AMERICAN. While we debate these nuances, of course, some
of our most broadly shared, bipartisan policy ideas kill people overseas, reason enough to question whether either major party is worth keeping
around.
•CONSCIOUSNESS: IN. Perhaps sanity will be easier to find at
the science lectures I’m attending tonight at 7:30 at Union Hall in Brooklyn, hosted by my friend Lefty. And if you e-mail me RIGHT NOW, you could use that second ticket I’ll be
carrying with me (or I’ll just read brainy Marc E. Fitch’s crime novel Dirty Water as I ride the subway alone).
•EVENTS: REAL. I swear I will also host real-world events of
my own again very soon, as promised, even if it means I post stuff online much less
often. Here’s a recent blog post by Kenneth Silber about one old bar debate I organized, which is still echoing in his mind and, for good or ill, echoing across the political spectrum in these troubled times. Sob. I will try to fix everything soon. It‘s what I do.