Bretigne Shaffer's Truth and Fiction

Until this very moment, I think I've believed that all human life was equally worthy, that no-one has more of a right to be here than anyone else, that no-one has the right to pass judgment on the value of another human life. When I saw the news that Amal Hussain - the seven-year-old Yemeni girl whose photo in the New York Times had drawn attention to the war-induced famine in Yemen - had died, and looked at the photo of her face, I realized that I don't believe that at all.

By Bretigne Shaffer Vote4 3

“Don’t raise your voice!” The Councillor with the stiff lion’s-mane hair bellowed into her microphone, her face shaking, but her coif remaining eternally still. Each of the guards leaned forward just slightly, their hands still on their hips. Gvtaren scribbled furiously in her notepad.

By Bretigne Shaffer Vote2 0

But this was no ordinary bookstore, and as proprietor, Andrea did much more than just “run a bookstore.” What she did, in fact, was to bring people together. This was kind of a big deal back in the eighties and nineties, when libertarians were still pretty small in number, and often very isolated.

By Bretigne Shaffer Vote1 1

Of course, if the belief that no-one has the right to enslave another constitutes a religious belief, then so does its inverse: The belief that some people do have the right to rule over others, to make decisions for them, to use force to get them to do what they want them to. Those who sling the epithet of religiosity at libertarians are in fact every bit as religious as we are.

By Bretigne Shaffer Vote2 0

When the story emerged that Roger had made a donation to Duke’s campaign, and there were calls to boycott his restaurant, people who knew me asked for my thoughts. I tried to find a way to express them. But I couldn’t.

By Bretigne Shaffer Vote9 5

The irony is this: That even five months after becoming a part of the largest remaining communist nation on earth, Hong Kong remains a much freer place in many respects than does the United States. While the government of Hong Kong has maintained a policy of minimal intervention in the economy and people's lives for over a century, government in the United States has increased dramatically, both in size and in the degree to which it exercises control over the lives of its citizens.

By Bretigne Shaffer Vote2 0

I wouldn’t ordinarily write an entire blog post about a conversation I’d had on Facebook – certainly not one as deeply stupid as this conversation became – but I think there’s something important to be learned from this particular exchange. I see it as sort of a snapshot of what is going on all over the country right now. So I hope you’ll bear with me.

By Bretigne Shaffer Vote12 11

I find myself a little speechless. It cannot be that all of these people only see evil when it wears the other team’s uniform. It cannot be that they are more upset by offensive speech than by a man claiming the right to kill any human being on earth at his whim. These things simply cannot be.

By Bretigne Shaffer Vote34 5

It occurs to me that there is something fundamentally disempowering about pursuing a solution that requires a majority of a population to go along with you. If your solution requires getting that many people to do what you are doing, then you don’t have a lot of power there. To me, it makes more sense to pursue solutions where I do have some power.

By Bretigne Shaffer Vote25 22

How did this happen? I wrote this nearly three years ago, and yet it seems to describe precisely what happened at last week's Democratic National Convention. Anyway, it's the only explanation I can come up with:

By Bretigne Shaffer Vote3 0

If you own a business that offers discounts to members of the military, then I have a problem with you. If you put a “support the troops” bumper sticker on your car, I have a problem with you. Because all of these things contribute to the mindless glorification of killing and dying for the state. All of these things help to support a cultural machinery that exists for the purpose of turning my son — and maybe yours — into cannon fodder. And yes, I have a problem with that.

By Bretigne Shaffer Vote56 25

Imagine how different things might have been, had black Americans been able to have their own police forces, competing with and challenging white police forces. The idea is not new. Economists such as Murray Rothbard, David Friedman and others have outlined in painstaking detail how non-monopoly systems of protection and defense might work, and indeed how they have worked in the past.

By Bretigne Shaffer Vote21 10

"I create prosperous outcomes over and over again, without lawsuits, without injuries, without death, no killing unarmed people," says Brown. "These deaths are avoidable. These deaths that you're hearing about... they ARE avoidable."

By Bretigne Shaffer Vote15 6

Perhaps most worrying, I saw how it allowed the members of my group to believe that anything - really, anything - could be considered acceptable, even good and decent, as long as the rest of the group thought it so.

By Bretigne Shaffer Vote9 0

Never mind that the voting merry-go-round doesn’t offer any non-statist solutions to these problems. That politicians are always and only called upon to act. To “do something!” This is not only the politicians’ fault. It is endemic to our culture: We respect those who are seen to be “doing something”. We respect action. We do not so much respect sitting quietly and contemplating.

By Bretigne Shaffer Vote6 1

All of Twitter’s users are different - they have different tastes, different interests, different capabilities, different levels of tolerance for words and ideas that are different from their own... and different thresholds for being offended. The dilemma is this: How does Twitter satisfy its users’ desire for free and open communication (kind of its core business), while also protecting its users from having their feelings hurt so badly that they no longer want to engage or be in the Twitter verse?

By Bretigne Shaffer Vote7 4

Urban Yogini tells the story of a young woman who is transformed into a superhero who is prohibited from using violence. When she's not practicing yoga, she spends her time fighting police brutality and other - mostly - crimes committed by those in authority. And when she's not doing that, she's hiding from those in authority who have labelled her a terrorist.

By Bretigne Shaffer Vote4 0

I discovered The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy around the time that I was suspended from school for going to get my lunch before the bell rang.

By Bretigne Shaffer Vote16 7

And I guess they're right. If you don't want to get beaten up or killed by big guys wearing uniforms, then you should keep your mouth shut and always do everything they say. Just like Kunta Kinte should have kept his mouth shut and stopped trying to run away if he didn't want to keep getting beaten and have body parts cut off. Only that's not the world I want to live in. I don't want to live in a society where a group of people gets to demand obedience from another group of people, and gets to beat them...

By Bretigne Shaffer Vote39 20

"All year long, we worry about the scary things. We watch the news and we see the shootings, and the bombings... But one night of every year we all experience what they don't show us on the news: That the people around us are basically good and decent. That the world is not as scary as we sometimes think it is."

By Bretigne Shaffer Vote7 2

What Did Amal’s Life Buy for You? Nov 5, 2018

Gvtaren in the Field Sep 17, 2018

Remembering Andrea Aug 7, 2018

Father Brown and the “Religion” of Libertarianism May 24, 2018

Hong Kong as a Model for a Free Society Sep 22, 2017

Speechless in 2017 Jan 20, 2017

Why I Won’t Be Voting: The Real Reason Libertarians Don’t Matter Oct 16, 2016

Urban Yogini Accurately Predicts the Democratic National Convention of 2016: Aug 2, 2016

No, I Don’t Support the Troops May 31, 2016

Must We Choose Between Mob Justice and the Police State? Mar 3, 2016

Private Protection Co. Puts Govt. Police to Shame Feb 25, 2016

Don’t Let the Group Do Your Thinking for You Feb 16, 2016

Elections and Nothingness Feb 16, 2016

Urban Yogini is Here! Dec 12, 2015

Douglas Adams and the Vogons at my School Nov 12, 2015

Kunta Kinte Had it Coming Nov 4, 2015

Happy Halloween from Anarcho Soccer Mom (Again) Oct 26, 2015