. . . an examination of things of interest to jad

Amanda Marcotte makes note of a study that indicates religious homophobia is the primary force driving the young out of the church, with 60% quitting religion when they leave home. The claim, she concludes, that morality comes from religion is precisely backwards:

The church needs people in the pews to survive, and while those people are constantly told their role is to submit and obey, if they just decide they don’t want to, the church is shown to be an emperor with no clothes. Thus, religion throughout history has had plenty of takebacks. The churches that used to preach segregation and white supremacy don’t do so anymore, at least as openly. A lot of churches, especially more mainstream ones, are giving up on the argument that women are just support staff, and many are even letting them be ministers and priests. Either they get with the times on gay marriage, or they find their ability to exert power diminish. Since churches are about power, most of them will adjust over time. That’s why they’re freaking out now; they know what’s coming.

While the “common wisdom” is that the church creates and maintains a moral code, the reality is that the chuch adapts the moral code of the majority in order to maintain the largest cohesive flock (for continual fleecing).

Religious doctrine is simply the encoding of popular morality, both the good, doing unto other an’at; and the stone evil, usually sanctifying existing hierarchies. As Amanda observes:

the historical purpose of religion is not to comfort but to control. Religion’s primary function is, if you look at the whole of history, about creating rationales for unjust power hierarchies. Kings have used “god” as their excuse for absolute power, and religion is the primary reason that men in a diverse array of cultures over cite as the reason they should be the lords of their wives and daughters. Even liberal Christians are tied to the long history of power-grabbing through religion, using the language of submission and calling believers a “kingdom”.

As humanity shakes off the various barbaric hierarchies of our past, religion has had to adopt. It gets dragged kicking and screaming into modernity. In the future, of course, religious adherents will highlight the work that some christians somewhere have probably done to advance gay rights and claim that christianity and its message of all encompassing love lead the way to a more perfect equality.

Most of us–the historically literate anyway–will call bullshit. We can cite the nearly infinite counter-examples where red faced douchebags stomped around waving the bible around and screaming about the evils of homosexuality.

Like the myths that the German catholic church opposed Hitler, or that American churches opposed slavery, only believers will, well, believe.

The timing of this article is interesting. Coming, as it does, the day after Barack Obama publicly supported gay marriage. Government is the other stone-aged human superstition that humanity has dragged along through the centuries. Very much like religion, it has always claimed to be a bringer of order in the midst of chaos.

Rest assured that, like future religious hagiographers, future historians will tell a convincing tale of how the government, with its commitment to civil liberties, boldly legislated marital freedom for everyone–in between pacifying the borders and protecting the world from terrorists. We’re hearing the first draft of the story right now. The one your grandkids learn, should they fall into the hands of government schools, will be far more epic.

Which really is the only difference between the chuch and the state in this regard. I’d wager it’s the only reason there are more atheists than anarchists: the state has 15,000 more hours to propagandize children than the church. The state’s stories aren’t remarkably more believable, and a few hours of research on a particular issue will reveal the nature of both church and state as reactionary anchors against human progress.

Law, along with economics and politics, is a relatively comprehensible subject about which the ruled are systematically kept ignorant. It’s an intuitive subject made ridiculously and artificially complex.

Here’s a necessary axiom of any civilized legal system: if there’s no victim and/or nobody complaining, nobody can be charged with a crime. To put it positively, if an action doesn’t hurt anybody else, it can’t be illegal.

That leaves room for complexity–situations where there it’s hard to tie together bad actors and victims, like, for example polluters or financial criminals.^[1]But let’s put those aside for the moment and talk about the cases in which there is clearly, inarguably no victim at all.

If we were to go prisoner-by-prisoner and ask everyone in the country: “Did this person ever harm you in any way? If not, we’re letting them go,” somewhere north of 80% of people would walk free.

Those 1.5+ million people are typically in cages for one of two reasons. Most frequently, they’ve done something that is “wrong” in someone’s opinion, usually to do with buying or selling non-patented drugs. The second category of prisoner are those who someone (usually the same someones from the first case) thinks might engage in an actual crime with actual victims in the future–usually poor people with BAC higher than .08 or those who don’t enthusiastically follow orders from a cop.

That’s over 1.5 million people in cages in the US because nobody–at least not enough people–understand the most basic legal premise: no victim, no crime. I’ve never had a discussion with a lawyer about this subject that made any sense to me^[2] That in itself doesn’t disqualify the legal-system-that-is as being something that does make sense, of course–I don’t understand quantum physics or space-time either. I feel like I’m willing to admit what I don’t know.

But when an expert in the field tries to help me get my mind around 4 dimensions or particle physics, I can see–usually via analogy or some simplification–the gist of what they’re trying to convey. It also helps that their explanations start with universal principles that are veritably true, or at least are very probably true.

When a legal expert attempts to explain why actions without victims (again, putting aside fringe cases) are crimes, things get absurd very quickly. There is no analogy or model or motivating example that leads to even a glimmer of sense. Yet every lawyer, every judge, and most politicians are trained in this way of thinking; this notion of the law as opinion given violent force. If you manage to stay in the conversation long enough, the rationale usually disolves down to: “it’s the law,” or some twist on the social contract–a fantastic unseen document that seems to under-gird most of the gawdawful things that rulers do to everyone else

And so, men, women and children are locked up. Their lives are destroyed based on legal principles that can’t be clearly explained other than to say that they exist because they do or because magic.

Not unrelated, but for another post: most of the people whose actions *do* have thousands or millions of victims–bailed out bankers, polluters, violent cops, “private abusers”/rapists, mercenary/imperial armies, etc.–are never held accountable. And so the law as we experience it is sort of the opposite of how law is supposed to function, which is kind of a pattern you may have noticed around other apologies for violence.

I am optimistic that 10 or 20 years from now, and increasingly as I age, I’ll be able to talk about law with people who weren’t raised with physical punishment or by parent who thought “because I said so” was a reason for anything. With more and more children being raised in safe, sane and loving households the nonsense that currently passes for a legal system doesn’t stand a chance.

1. ^[1] two crimes with tons of victims and almost no one held legally accountable are polluting of the environment and financial fraud. ↩
2. ^[2] Granted, I don’t hang out with lawyers that often. ↩

I’ve said it before, and I doubt you’ll be spared me saying it many times again: for most people on this planet, the state isn’t the primary impediment to their freedom and happiness.

Not to downplay the millions of victims on the receiving end of US “foreign policy,” or caged in global or domestic gulags–the withering away of the state will mean life instead of death or imprisonment and that is, of course, a very good thing.

A component of that withering, both underestimated and inestimable, is the recognition and dismantling of systems of oppression besides those enshrined in state institutions.

While the parallels between the violent nature of the state and the violent nature of other power structures are striking, they’re hard to address because, like state violence, their pervasiveness makes them difficult to identify. Highlighting the true nature of these systems to someone who has grown up within them is nearly impossible. Enlightenment, if and when it happens, usually comes when the “violence inherent in the system” manifests itself on the soon-to-be-enlightened, or perhaps a loved one thereof.

The other path to seeing the previously unseen is repeated exposure to the idea that the system is based on violence, founded on inequality. This requires profound patience on the part of all involved and a waiting out of the bluster and bombast and whatever other defense mechanisms are in place to prevent one seeing what is in front of one’s nose.

Anarchists get that the state relationship is based on violence: not just the wars and the prisons, but every law. The proof of this is trivial and it’s an axiom, literally, of all post-highschool political science, yet most Americans refuse to see the violence in the system. They believe that they are voluntary participants in institutions necessary for civilization when the truth is actually the opposite.

Outside of the persistent targets of state violence: immigrants, the poor, and racial minorities, only the disobedient get a taste (or more, depending on how quickly they relent) of what stands behind every law, every ordinance, every statute.

I have some rudimentary insight into a particular non-state parallel that I’ve written about before. Prepare to detect in yourself the defense mechanisms that will attempt to force your mind away from a very clear and obvious truth: women are oppressed, not primarily by the state, but by men.

Yes, there are exceptions; yes, the state historically supported the dominance of me; no, not all men are violent oppressors; no, not all women are victims of physical violence. Neither are all citizens victims of state violence and neither are all state agents perpetrators of violence. As Charles Johnson and Roderick Long point out in their must-read paper, Libertarian Feminism: Can This Marriage Be Saved? regarding a common non-feminist reaction to the claim that we live in a rape culture:

Libertarians rightly recognize that legally enacted violence is the means by which all rulers keep all citizens in a state of fear, even though not all government functionaries personally beat, kill, or imprison anybody, and even though not all citizens are beaten, killed, or imprisoned; the same interpretive charity towards the radical feminist analysis of rape is not too much to ask.

The analogy I’ve used is the experience of being approached by a policeman. In a given encounter, it’s very unlikely that the cop will beat, cage or kill you. The anarchist analysis, felt in the gut of virtually everyone even if it can’t be put into words, is that the policemen could beat, cage or kill you and would almost certainly get away with it.

If he wants your name or ID or for you to disclose the contents of your pockets, it’s considered by most to be a normal social interaction. Your resistance to his desires is considered unnatural and potentially risky. Anything that happens to you if decide to break with the social norm is going to be seen by most people as your own fault, by one twisted rationale or another.

Women are in an analogous position vis-à-vis an encounter with a man. A woman is expected to make conversation and be cordial if approached and can reasonably be asked her name, phone number, and what she’s doing this weekend. None of this is considered socially invasive. It place in a context where violence could very well be the result of refusing to participate. In most cases, barring sufficiently enlightened witnesses, alot of people will bend over backwards to blame the woman for whatever ills visit her as a result of the encounter.

Denying that this is the case, especially denying it to people who have had that very subjective experience, is, well, fucked up.

I’ve got alot more to say about this, but in the interest of actually posting something, I’ll break it off here. This feels rambly anyway, so I’d be happy if somebody focused my thinking on some aspect of the above.

Today is Bradley Manning’s second birthday in a cage. His “crime”–still alleged, speedy trial and all that–was illuminating the pervasive brutality of the U.S. occupation. While he spends his 20s locked away in a gulag, the exposed murderers, rapists and torturers, along with their bosses and their bosses’ bosses right through to the commander in chief remain free–celebrated even, on occasion.

Manning highlights the impossible nature of reforming “the system.” Besides being one of several million human beings spending the holidays–and every other day–confined in a cage, he’s also a declaration to anyone seeking reform. The price of revelation is being disappeared, joining the non-persons whose lives are openly erased. Any attempt even to shed light on the actual functioning of the imperial state will be met by the full might of the state.

It’s very sad, and infuriating. At the very least, nobody can reasonably say the beast he exposed is an institution with a human well-being as its purpose.

Happy Birthday, Bradley.

Under conditions of freedom, human communities do amazing things. In the Western nation-states, two countervailing trends have affected these conditions. Firstly, as superstition and custom are slowly shed in favor of enlightenment and empathy, social strictures and their legal counterparts have fallen away.

Thus, non-anglo-saxon europeans, then africans, then women, then asians, and now children moved with painful slowness into the category of “human” from that of “other.” As collective consciousness about their humanity struggled out of the mire of custom and into the light of reality, the related laws were also forced to change. The privileged classes had to begrudgingly free these categories of people from being the property of others, then allow them to own property, and finally had to allow them free self-expression, travel, and the other unalienable rights of human beings.

The increase in the number and variety of freed–or at least less categorically enslaved–people resulted in the phenomena we’ve witnessed in art, technology, entertainment and the like over the last hundred or so years in the west. Humans, allowed the native freedom to follow their consciences and express their personhood, have fashioned truly spectacular worlds to enhabit.

The reactionary instinct that expressed itself in the upholding of tradition in keeping large swaths of human beings under the control of their “betters,” had to change its skin. It’s moved from superstitious custom into “scientific social management.” Blacks aren’t slaves and aren’t segregated because of their biblically ordained inferiority–that would be silly. Instead, they are jailed for trading in forbidden items. Businesses on the margin are harassed, closed or seized for lack of appropriate paper-work or inability to comply with city codes. Art installations, work shops, light industry, and all the interesting diversity and creativity of organic society are threatened by ever increasing and militarized policing.

This has been the norm in most American cities for quite some time, though most places have pockets of creative and industrious people who manage–at least for awhile–to live their lives and create their worlds without being harassed to the point of extinction.

Example: Code Compliance in Austin, TX

Austin, TX is, or was, a rare example of an entire city where each individual was largely allowed to create, trade, share, live and love as he or she saw fit. For that reason, Austin at the end of the 20th century was an amazing amalgam of human creativity and productivity. Besides the live music that makes the city famous worldwide, places like the Enchanted Forest, the Cathedral of Junk, the Rhizome collective, yards turned into wildlife habitats, ubiquitous food trailers, entire districts of light industry turned into art studios, and clever ventures like the Electric Cabs of Austin really make Austin a stand-out metropolitan area in an increasingly grey and homogeneous America.

The list of such spectacles could, and probably does, fill a book; I mention them because they’ve all been shut down, or are facing constant threats of being so by an ever-increasing tide of city “management”.

In these cases, specifically, the reactionary branch of government is Austin’s Code Compliance Department. This department didn’t exist in the year 2000, hence the freedom that lead to Austin’s reputation as a haven for creators, eccentrics, artists and musicians–oh, and prosperity.

Following a well understood pattern, as prosperity increases, those that make a living by stealing (what they prefer to call “taxing”) from the productive find themselves awash with money to spend. In a bid, I suppose, to garner votes from the 10%
or so of residents who are willing to use force to instantiate their visions of an ideal society, Austin government used the extra money to build and empower a Code Compliance Department.

In doing so they are making a bid to kill the golden goose. In a city that recently laid off hundreds of school teachers due to budget shortfalls, Austin City Council still sees fit to spend 10 million dollars a year destroying the peaceful and beautiful fabric of the creative community. The anonymous reporting system used by the department has also turned neighbor against neighbor as petty feuds blow up into neighborhood-wide “floods of calls,” ultimately resulting, in the case of one South Austin neighborhood, in

violation notices to 76 homeowners in the neighborhood, telling them they must apply for permits for improvements such as garage conversions and carports.
Those who fail to correct the problem could be criminally charged and fined up to $2,000 per day or have their utilities disconnected, according to recent letters sent to homeowners that gave them a March 26 deadline to comply.

The situation is heartbreaking. For all the victims of Austin Code Compliance Department and all the additional victims of the general increase in policing of victimless crimes by the numerous, ever replicating, expanding, and tremendously expensive city bureaucracies, the situation is intolerable.

And make no mistake, all of Austin, at least those that constitute that which deserves to be called Austin, are collateral damage of these fights. We’re the ones who remember what Austin once was, and who must watch, powerless, as our money goes to the greying of this vibrant city, as our neighborhoods are homogenized, our neighbors fined, jailed, and brought into “compliance,” and our artists, inventors, and creators are driven out of their homes, studios, and communities, some never to return.