Egoism
Individualism
Sovereignty
Splendor

(These ideas are explicated in this sloppy manifesto)

 
In fact, 'ingrate' is a Latin word...

Using the Roman alphabet and writing in a language that is at least 65% Latin-based, BBC NEWS asks: "What did the Romans do for us?"

The Romans' flair for building roads may have been responsible for the London congestion charge, an academic has claimed.

The Romans built most of their roads in to and out of the capital, setting the scene for traffic overload in London, it is suggested.

The common belief they civilised ancient Britons is also a misconception, according to Dr Francis Pryor, president of the Council for British Archaeology.

He believes they made the road system worse and stifled Celtic art with their militaristic culture.

You can actually read about the Celts at the time that Britannia (the Roman name) was occupied by the Romans. The whole story is in De Bello Gallico, a remarkable book by Gaius Julius Caesar. You can't read the Celtic side of the story, alas. The Celts didn't have a written language until the Romans gave them Latin. Of course, all the really high cultures were illiterate.

The Renaissance came to Britannia a century late, but that's surely because the Celts and their Pictish, Danish and Frankish invaders were so retarded by Roman incompetence. The 'modern' city of London didn't have a sewer system until the middle of the 17th century because those tricky Romans hid the one they had built 16 centuries earlier underground. It was the devil's own job to find it and re-open it, contributing zero new ideas to the technology. The wheel-base of railroads the world over is equal to the wheel-base of a Roman chariot, but that's just because the Romans didn't pave over the pesky ruts their pesky chariots made in all the pesky roads they built in Britannia. What could the sons of the Celts do but copy ideas they had not created?

Great Britain is very lucky to have been invaded so many times, by so many different cultures. The invaders may have brought havoc, but they also spawned the richest language in human history. But every one of those invasions was made possible by technology devised by the Romans, and by the Greeks before them. To speak of a British culture distinct from Roman culture is absurd. To see what the Celts would have achieved without Rome, supplant the skyscrapers of Londinium (the Roman name) with the hovels of the Basque. But do it with your own damn alphabet...
posted by Greg Swann at 12:13 PM

 
"The Price of their Peace"

My friend Mike Arst pointed me to this page, which takes to fulsome task what it calls 'The Axis of Weasels -- France, Belgium, and Germany.' When I got there, I saw the most amazing Flash animation, which had originally come from the dissident frogman, a French weblog. The banner doesn't make the entire argument for the war, but it makes one-third of the case masterfully.
posted by Greg Swann at 6:47 AM

 
War! Further notice...

John Kennedy of no-treason.com responds to the email quoted below:

> I'm arguing against the state. I'm arguing that the
> decision to go to war is not legitimately a collective
> decision. Isn't that argument correct, regardless of
> any supposed compromises you think I've made with the
> state?

So you'll throw out the baby but _keep_ the bathwater.
How does that make sense?

This is a Libertarian war. That it is funded the way it
will be is regrettable. But to oppose the liberation of
the victims of Islamism, and to forebear to oppose the
psychotics who would visit the atrocities of Islamism
upon you, _because_ you have so far failed to rid the
U.S. of taxes--that is absurd. You can convince me you
are serious by giving up all the pedestrian benefits of
tax-slavery. To cavil in this way about a just war
without first burning your library card is a joke.

posted by Greg Swann at 9:49 AM

 
War! Good god, y'all... What is it good for?

This is an email I sent to John Kennedy of no-treason.com. John had argued against a position taken by Billy Beck of two-four.net, and the email is me taking the argument back to John. It stands in stead of an essay, by a man too busy to write one.

> This is the argument libertarians need to make, not
> that war is evil, but that it can never be moral to
> force others to participate.

John, when you bathe in tap-water, are you complicit
in the coercive-monopoly water supply? When you drive
on the coercive-monopoly roads? When you pay your
bills by means of the coercive-monopoly postal
system?

Your argument is better than the libertarians', and
better than Billy's, too, I think (and I suspect that
Billy pays gasoline taxes and pushes quarters into
parking meters). But I think all of these claims are
specious, and I am continuously amazed at the deep
level of denial among libertarians about their state
of compromise with the monopoly state.

I have the advantage of being opposed to force where
_all_ libertarians favor it--in retribution. But this
war is not about retribution. It is about
prophylaxis. The only just use of force is the
emergency response, where to fail to respond would
result in greater harm. This situation qualifies,
although I lack confidence that the war will end
there.

But: It remains that the war will be fought, like it
or don't, just as the roads will be built, like it or
don't. And it remains that squeamish libertarians
will be made substantially more safe from freelance
homicidal theocrats, no matter how much they'd rather
squirm in noisesome oblivion. You don't have to steal
the water; it's already been stolen. You don't have
to support the war; you're getting it for "free."

But: Every time you lick a stamp, you are kissing the
Master's ass. Voluntarily. By your own free choice.
No coercion required. Ted Kaczynski was not entirely
consistent; he used the mails, and a hand-machined
screw is nevertheless an artifact of high-technology.
But he was a _lot_ more consistent than purportedly
anti-state libertarians, who are perfectly happy to
oppose the state where they have no hope of changing
anything, and absolutely delighted--as your deCoster
harpy--to suck at the taxpayer's tit whenever that's
convenient. Thus, this war provides a double-scoop of
libertarian dream-scream: Meaningless opposition plus
all the "free" benefits.

I'll like your argument better when you put a cistern
in your back-yard and bathe in rain-water.

Best,

Greg

posted by Greg Swann at 6:20 AM

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