Sic Semper Tyrannis

Greetings, gentle readers. My name is Aaron Krowne, and I will be blogging from here regularly (if all goes well). I'd like to express my deep gratitude to Neal for inviting me to his site and welcoming me to the fold as a kindred spirit.

As Neal has said in his announcement, I am of the anarcho-capitalist bent. This is pretty accurate, but to broaden the description a little bit, I consider myself philosophically libertarian--its just that the logical extent of libertarianism is (to me) something very close to anarcho-capitalism. In fact, it might be more accurate to call me an anarcho-capitalist-voluntarist, because I believe non-market interactions have an important role in society, even given a "perfect" free market.

Some people may recognize me from other places. I run PlanetMath, which I consider a successful example of a "virtual" anarchistic community (including property rights and various aspects of markets). I have been semi-blogging at my Furl for about a year now, a site I will continue to use to bookmark interesting finds along with small bits of commentary. I also frequently write comments on a number of well-known economics blogs, such as Cafe Hayek, EconBrowser, TheMessThatGreenspanMade, and others. Basically, I can't keep my big mouth shut about this stuff. Lately I have also delved into the newsletter non-business, writing the bi-weekly Krowne Economic Report (which is available upon request, by email).

My general-purpose home page, by the way, is here.

I am calling my blog here at autoDogmatic "Sic Semper Tyrannis". It loosely means "death to tyrants" and is the motto of the State of Virginia. This is a hat-tip to the state I am from (I now live in Atlanta, GA), but of course it is also an ideological statement. To me, the crux of libertarianism is non-coercion (as opposed to "individualism" as many inaccurately say), and coercion happens to be the central attribute of tyrants and their acolytes.

I hope to post mainly substantial original commentary here, as opposed to Furl-like "bookmarks." This is a major reason I accepted the offer to blog here: I needed a venue to write something in between MLP and more extensive essays.

Brace yourself, because it will start soon (maybe immediately), and just might shake up your worldview

P.S. - Some may wonder why I'm using my real name. There are two main reasons. The first is so that all my work can be attached to my identity and reputation--not necessarily for some sort of expected payout, but so I can at least connect with interesting people whom I can learn from (like Neal). The second reason is because the government probably knows who I am anyway (NSA, are you listening)? I am not ashamed of my views; and I consider them more quintessentially American than the policies and propaganda of our supposedly-benevolent overlords. If writing my opinion honestly and participating in public discourse means no security clearances for me--or even direct abuse by the government--then so be it.