St. Crispin's Day

Popper and perhaps others posited in the early to mid-20 th century that conspiracy theories were implausible simply on the face of it. [ 1 ] Any claim of a ‘conspiracy theory’ as deemed by ‘experts’ should require such a massive burden of proof that it should be absurd and likely beyond the ability of amateur researchers to prove. His specific statement was something along the lines of ‘any large group engaged in [nefarious] secret activity is unlikely to keep its secrets long.’ For now, we’ll let this stand. Suffice it to say, I think that there are enough case studies if you like or Bayesian priors which lead one to conclude that his thesis was wrongheaded. That is, if you attribute no ill motives to him or the others who helped create the term ‘conspiracy theory’ and then pathologize it. The first and obvious counter is that states do things in secret which they are tasked in the name of known objectives, the foremost being national security, national interest, protection of ...

Libertarians have developed into a complicated picture unto their own. There are the hard culturally ‘left’ libertarians – the wayward libertines and left-Rothbardians, many degenerates or hangers-on to such baggage that they tacitly accept gutter law that would permit a society whose aesthetics would be trashy to the extreme. These are the C4SS crowd, the degenerate child pornographer and fondler Brad Spangler, Kevin Carson, and various ‘market syndicalists’ and ‘market socialists’ and ‘libertarian socialists’ who contend for the title of ‘left libertarian.’ There are of course the centrists, as ever, who fall in the grays and grades between designated endpoints. Most modern libertarians arguably fall in the left-center or right-center of this cultural picture. Then there are the traditionalist libertarians, more like myself, Hoppe and his PFS crowd, and some of the American Renaissance folk as well.

While it is likely due to the peculiar nature of the milieu I inhabit, somewhere betwixt nationalists, conservatives, and libertarians of various stripes, I do come into interesting thoughts which I suspect lies outside of most relatively hermetical conservatives, libertarians, or nationalists, who but hear theirs and the typical liberal tripe fodder that dominates the citadel of the university and media. I would still characterize myself as a libertarian antistatist at heart, though I am more willing now than ever to admit the speculative nature of antistatism. It’s an experiment worth trying, although one must acknowledge the possible fragility of the institutions we envision. I find myself rejecting a great deal of the libertine baggage I once hesitantly or readily embraced to varying degrees. To gain sufficient traction to manifest our will, a minimum standard of decorum across society will have to be met. Rather like now, that means that the possible images of some of a liber...