Old MySpace Blogpost (June 6, 2006):

Many Straussians, Lincoln-idolators (many of whom are Straussians), and other statists like to suppress the fact that the states had the right to secede from the “Union” as well as the right to nullify legislative enactments they thought were unconstitutional. As one piece of evidence that these rights were widely recognized prior to Lincoln’s unconstitutional and unjust war on the South, and not just made up by Calhoun in order to protect the institution of slavery:

November 10, 1798

Resolved, that the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principles of unlimited submission to their General Government; but that by compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States and of amendments thereto, they constituted a General Government for special purposes, delegated to that Government certain definite powers, reserving each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self Government; and that whansoever the General Goverment assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force: That to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party, its co-States forming as to itself, the other party: That the Government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that as in all other cases of compact among parties having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well as of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.

Old MySpace Blogposts:

From May 20, 2006:

Bill Kauffman, author of Look Homeward, America: In Search of Reactionary Radicals and Front-Porch Anarchists – localist conservative anarchist, Jeffersonian decentralist, and reactionary radical – whose book I just began slowly reading, has a group blog [which unfortunately looks to be ended] to promote his book. Check out Reactionary Radicals.

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I love the opening paragraph of Kauffman’s book:

“I am an American patriot. A Jeffersonian decentralist. A fanatical localist. And I am an anarchist. Not a sallow garret-rat translating Proudhon by pirated kilowatt, nor a militiaman catechized by the Classic Comics version of The Turner Diaries; rather, I am the love child of Henry Thoreau and Dorothy Day, conceived amidst the asters and goldenrod of an Upstate New York autumn.”

The next two paragraphs aren’t half-bad either:

“Like so many of the subjects of this book, I am also a reactionary radical, which is to say I believe in peace and justice but I do not believe in smart bombs, daycare centers, Wal-Mart, television, or Melissa Etheridge’s test-tube baby.

“Reactionary radicals” are those Americans whose political radicalism (often inspired by the principles of 1776 and the culture of the early America) is combined with – in fact, flows from – a deep-set social “conservatism.”"

Another great paragraph: “Look Homeward, America – and yes, the echoes of Thomas Wolfe and George McGovern are intentional – offers an alternative to the American Empire whose subject no true-hearted American would wish to be. Mine is a Middle American, profoundly un-imperial patriotism based in love of American music, poetry, places, quirks and commonalities, historical crotchets, holy fools and eminent Kansans. It is not the sham patriotism of the couch-sitter who sings “God Bless America” as the bombs light up his television, or the chickenhawk who loves little of his country beyond its military might.”

And another: “Robert Frost put his faith in the “insubordinate Americans,” throaty dissenters and ornery traditionalists, and this book is for and about them – those Americans who reject Empire; who cherish the better America, the real America; who cannot be broken by the Department of Homeland Security, who will not submit to the PATRIOT Act, and who will make the land acrid and bright with the stench and flame of burnt national ID cards when we – should we – cross that Orwellian pass. This is still our country, you know. Don’t let Big Brother and the imperialists take it from us.”

I’m against empire and the State in general. I like television, but I recognize its downsides as well. I generally don’t have a problem with Wal-Mart, except insofar as it benefits from government aid (and it does). I am in many ways a localist and definitely a decentralist, but I’m also a global humanist who sees humanity as a loose-knit global society with a shared human nature and, if we are to have a free society, some shared values as well. I’m also not quite so convinced as most social conservatives that what they think is morally wrong actually is so for everyone. In any case, there is no necessary contradiction between being a social conservative and a radical libertarian; indeed, many libertarians I know are both.

I am an American patriot…but of America as it once was and might have been, not as it is now. I am an Aristotelian-libertarian anarchist.

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From May 21st, 2006:

Kauffman ends the first chapter of his book with a great quote from Chodorov followed by a self-comparison that is revealing of the difference between a reactionary like Kauffman and a radical like Chodorov. I remain skeptical just how radical a reactionary radical can be.

The quote: “A government building you regard as a charnel house, which in fact it is; you enter it always under duress, and you never demean yourself by curtsying to its living or dead statuary. The stars on the general’s shoulders merely signify that the man might have been a useful member of society; you pity the boy whose military garb identifies his servility [sorry Ben! but I have to agree!]. The dais on which the judge sits elevates the body but lowers the man, and the jury box is a place where three-dollar-a-day slaves enforce the law of slavery. You honor the tax dodger. You do not vote because you put too high a value on your vote.”

That last sentence is reminiscent of Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience in which he analogized voting to gambling with morality. If you’re willing to leave an issue up to a vote or, worse yet, up to a vote for a statesman (read state’s man; a much more apt term than politician) you foolishly hope will represent your views, then you either don’t care all that much about the issue or lack the integrity and responsibility to do the right thing yourself. For example, concerned about the poor? Help them out yourself rather than get Uncle Sam to rob Peter to pay Paul.

Kauffman’s self-comparison with Chodorov: “Mind you, my profuse and sentimental localism keeps me from being half as radical as Chodorov. I have friends who are judges, legislators, even soldiers. I vote often, if futilely. I pay town, village, and county taxes without grumbling. (I’ve a mild objection to state taxes, and I loathe, execrate, and abominate – but pay – federal taxes, which are put to purposes nefarious and even homicidally sinister.)”

Now, I pay taxes too. I’m not a moron, nor am I in a position in my life in which I feel the need to play the martyr. But I don’t pay any taxes willingly and consider all taxes to be immoral and unjust. I have a friend who is a soldier, but I don’t hold it against him. I myself was once a soldier in the LA Army National Guard. (As a side note, the National Guard no longer performs the function it was intended to and is really just another branch of the national standing army.) And I no longer vote. A vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for evil and, in any case, is still just a gamble, an attempt at self-defense at best, a sanction of evil at worst.

[I don't vote for political candidates, but I may occasionally vote in referendums or whatnot in an attempt to directly decrease state power - by blocking some statist measure or supporting a measure that moves in a libertarian direction. I don't trust any politicians, not even Libertarian party candidates - especially not since the LP apparatchiks sold out.]