MBH,

I’d classify “ground-zero mosque” as a noun phrase.

Did you mean to ask me something about how that noun phrase has become widespread in political talk, even though the thing allegedly picked out by it is neither at “ground zero,” nor a mosque? If so, I’d say it probably depends on the person using the term, and you probably ought to ask them how they came to settle on that phrase. I imagine you’ll find that some people use it out of ignorance, either simple or wilful; others have more or less elaborate rationalizations for why it’s an apt description; some people just don’t give much of a damn about accuracy; etc. No doubt a lot of it has to do with the kinds of intellectual vices and political abuses of language that Orwell described in “Politics and the English Language.” All of which I think will go a lot further towards explaining something worth explaining than “memes” will.

In any case, I certainly do not think that the aptness of the phrase “ground zero mosque” is the most important issue in that whole idiotic shouting match. The most important issue are (1) the direct effort to associate all Muslims, just as such, with the actions of a specific group of Islamist terrorists, for the purpose of collective blame; and (2) the substantive arguments being given to the effect that the sensitivities of American nationalists are legitimate grounds for violently suppressing other people’s private property rights and free exercise of religion. Most people who believe in belligerent nationalism, religious intolerance and overt tyranny are still going to believe in those things with or without the specific phrase “ground zero mosque,” and I think there’s a lot more to be gained by challenging the substance of the argument, rather than trying to come up with polemical explanations of people’s reasons for using and spreading the noun phrase.

MBH:

Anyone who advocates tearing government “out at the root” is an anarchist

Man, I don’t care what you consider them really to be. When you use the phrase ‘so-called’ and then wrap the following term in quotation marks, that very strongly suggests that you mean to say that somebody actually called them so, in as many words.

If you’re trying to make a point about the public meaning of words like “anarchy” and “anarchist,” then certainly you ought to be able to back up the claim that at least somebody, somewhere calls the Kochs “anarchist” in as many words. If you can’t find any such description, then (1) the Kochs are probably not very good paradigm cases, or particularly important to understanding the public meaning of the terms “anarchy” or “anarchist,” and (2) the Kochs are definitely not ‘so-called “anarchists”.’ Maybe you think they really are anarchists who are not so called; but if so, you ought to think of a better way to express what you mean.

whether they prefer to be called “autarchist” for politically correct purposes or not.

The article says nothing to suggest that either Charles Koch or David Koch considers himself an “autarchist,” or prefers to be called “autarchist.” Do you have any independent data to suggest this is true?

The bit about “autarchism,” in the article, is a brief description of Robert LeFevre’s self-identification. (That’s also the only mention of “anarchism” in the article, as well.) Which shows us that the Kochs hung out with some anarchist libertarians. Which we already could have told you. Later, prior to the big nasty Cato split, they also hung out with Rothbard and Roy Childs, who really were so-called anarchists. Incidentally, LeFevre’s reasons for wanting to be called an “autarchist” were idiosyncratic, not conformist (*), and had nothing in particular to do with “political correctness” in any plausible interpretation of that term. (Roughly, he thought — wrongly — that all Anarchists truly so-called were anti-propertarian and anti-market; and he also thought the term suggested the breakdown of all control, including even self-control, which conflicted with LeFevre’s personal interest in Stoic moral philosophy.)

(*) Just about nobody — not even his own students — followed LeFevre’s usage (Roy Childs, for example, was describing himself as an “anarchist” within about a year), or even took it very seriously.

John Howard: Except for the spousal prerogative to conceive offspring together, and to feel society's approval for conceiving offspring together.

Heterosexual couples can procreate as much as they want -- that's their business -- but they have no "prerogative" to "feel society's approval for conceiving offspring together." My approval (or disapproval) of their choice to have children is my own damn business.


John Howard: No MarkZ, even in theory I'm opposed, because it'd use energy and cost billions of dollars and would injure our natural reproductive rights.

I have no idea what you think "our natural reproductive rights" are, but I'm pretty sure your natural reproductive rights don't include the "right" to constrain other people's reproduction.

In any case, what in the world has this got to do with whether or not same-sex couples ought to have their marriages recognized for, e.g., tax or immigration or next-of-kin purposes? None of those has anything in particular to do with the prospects of having children.

MBH:

I come to find that the most powerful so-called “anarchists” in the world have a certain way of advancing their corporate interests. …

“So-called” by whom?

Desi: You can’t honestly say any employer would pay a minimum wage if left to themselves.

But who’s suggesting that bosses be “left to themselves” to set wages? The question is how to get bosses to pay a decent wage. Statists suggest doing that through the political means — by coercing bosses into abiding by a price floor on labor. Anti-state leftists don’t say that bosses should just pay whatever they feel like paying; we suggest that workers should use non-coercive, social or economic means to ensure that bosses pay decent wages. Not through the State, but rather through consensual social and economic organization. Rather than counting on government to protect us through laws, we suggest that fellow workers should exercise our rights to freely associate, share information, pool resources, unionize, slow-down, strike, and in general create a rich set of voluntary labor unions, co-ops, mutual aid networks, fallbacks, and alternatives to wage-labor.

Gene:

I don’t think so — polytheists have a hard time being fanatical (about religion, anyway)

Really? Try telling that to Justin Martyr, or Saint Sebastian.

It’s true that intolerant polytheists rarely get very exercised about the things intolerant monotheists get exercised about — in particular, the fact of worshipping gods other than their own — they usually either accept that there are more gods out there; or else interpret your cult as the worshipping of the gods they already know, only under a different name. But they do easily get exercised if you refuse to worship the gods that they worship, or do things that they consider desecration towards the things that those gods hold sacred. Some of the most famously syncretic pagans, such as the Romans, were also some of the most ultraviolent — the pagan Roman state was constitutionally a theocracy — since the Emperor was both supreme pontiff and held to be literally divine. (*) Those who refused to worship the Roman civic gods (e.g., Christians), or who practiced other religions considered to undermine the supremacy of the official Roman religion (e.g. “Egyptian rites” and various mystery cults) could be persecuted with extreme violence, including round-ups, massacres, and all kinds of gruesomely inventive ways of torturing people to death for their religious convictions.

(*) Caesars were routinely deified after their deaths; “Son of God” was among Augustus’s official state titles (referring back to the posthumous deification of Julius Caesar). Domitian and Diocletian went so far as to demand to be venerated as living gods during their own earthly reigns.

... I suppose that this is going to depend, in part, on an evaluation about what sorts of technological developments are most significant and most threatening.

... Kevin, Well, at this point we'll need to separate out at least three issues -- (1) content of the policy; (2) enforcement *capacity*; and (3) actual

... Well, for some people, yes; for other people, no. The 1950s -- the age of Jim Crow, J. Edgar Hoover, Urban Renewal, the military Space Race, and the

Scott Haley:

What is not being recognized by many is how the new Fascists fit into the Globalization phenomenon. The goal is the virtual elimination of national borders …

Man, I wish they’d hurry up on that one. Somehow even with all this effort to virtually eliminate nation-state borders, my undocumented (“illegal”) friends here in Las Vegas are still living in fear of nighttime knock-on-the-door raids from all those virtually eliminated ICE agents, and “Ihre Papiere, bitte” treatment from the virtually eliminated U.S. Border Patrol (whose expansive notion of the virtually eliminated U.S. borders apparently includes the Greyhound station at Lake Mead and LVB). I hear there are some other folks in similar predicaments. Meanwhile, my own efforts to get outside of those virtually eliminated national borders for a scant two weeks have cost me over $200 and a few months of calendar time solely for government paperwork processing — not including all the hidden costs and administrative red tape built into my airline tickets, etc.) If those globalist fascists want to virtually eliminate the despicable and dehumanizing institution of arbitrary nation-state borders, then that’s at least one good thing you can say for them. However, if that is what they want, they’re not doing a very good job of getting it, are they?

James Madison Fan:

I would offer the staunch support of illegal immigration by the advocates of the right to “free movement” that write prolifically for the Freeman such as Becky Akers are playing into the hands of Globalists that Mr. Haley warns of.

I agree that “illegal” immigrants are undermining national sovereignty. That’s why I like them. “National sovereignty” is a statist code word for massive government surveillance and violence against peaceful and productive people, on the basis of arbitrary political boundaries drawn on the basis of statist conquests, and all of it enforced by means of a “Papers, please” border-police state that affects all of us, immigrant and native alike — from I-9 forms, to interstate and bus-terminal checkpoints, to endless Customs and Immigration queues, to increased demands for IDs and proof of citizenship at everything from basic travel to college applications, along with government’s ever-increasing demands for even more rigorous forms of National ID (for “security,” natch). People who violate such manifestly unjust and destructive laws are to be praised for their courage and their practical contribution to routing around the damage created by nation-state collectivism.

If borders are arbitrary and national sovereignty a fiction then title is too

I agree that land titles which derive from feudal land grants and statist conquests are a fiction, and ought to be abolished. Those which derive from honest labor and homesteading are not, and ought not be.

How much this will affect any given person’s land ownership depends on how much they have honestly worked the land they are on, and how much they have simply depended on the government’s arbitrary claims to a political Land Monopoly to exclude other potential homesteaders.

The authority to purchase the land is the same authority that allows them to divide it, sell it, grant title to it, and regulate access to it, including removing an uninvited guest from your living room if I choose to ignore your “arbitrary” property line the same way foreign nationals choose to ignore our [sic] “arbitrary” national borders.

Of course, nobody objects to you being able to remove uninvited guests from your living room. What I object to is your claim that you, through the United States government, has a right to remove invited guests from my living room, if they don’t meet your approval, based on the government’s borders. (They’re not my borders; I never wanted them. Maybe you’ve decided to adopt them as yours, but if so you ought to speak only for yourself.)