Porclog day 4 (and 5)

Combined day post today. Things are starting to get busy and the wifi is starting to suck.
Two highlights from yesterday. First, I got the change to shake hands and talk with Stephan Kinsella. I listened to Stephan’s podcast a lot when I was first discovering the liberty movement. He’s solid on the evils of intellectual property (a talk he’s giving in just a bit that will cause me to finish this post) and is among the best I have heard in applying libertarian anarchist principles to real world situations with a solid logic trail. Second, was the pre-screening of the movie Deep Web about the Silk Road and Ross Ulbricht’s alleged (now convicted) role in it’s creation. The popular myth is that the trial was all about drug’s, but it’s clear to me after watching the movie (narrated by Keanu Reeve’s BTW) that his real crime was disobeying. Ross’ mom, Lynn, did a Q&A afterward and she is the face of strength. I don’t know how she keeps it up. If you care at all about your digital freedom, or your freedom in general, watch the movie when it hits Netflix and Amazon in the fall and check out the defense fund site and donate if you can.
Two highlights from the day today so far as well. First was a debate between Stephan and Will (from the Atlas Society) on the topic of anarchism. I love the debate format since, when its done correctly, it really is a way to develop a deeper understanding of an issue while at the same time developing your own logic and rhetoric skills. I would say the Stephan was the winner as the position Will took seemed to have some pretty gaping holes. The biggest being that the current situation we find ourselves in is the result of competition between defense agencies (i.e. state to state warfare) so reducing that competition would reduce the violence. It seems to me that there are actually fewer states globally today than there were 500 years ago, yet the violence has only increased. I know he would call me an empiricist, but the correlation seems strong to me. The second was getting to see a real live ghost gunner turn an ordinary hunk of metal (80% lower actually) into a gun (an AR lower actually). And no, it didn’t immediately jump off the table and kill all of us that were watching.
The thing that the Silk Road and the Ghost Gunner have in common is they are practical forms of liberty activism. They are actually useful to people AND they point out to everyone that cares to look how ridiculous even trying to regulate things has become. And if they look a little further, they’ll realize it was always that way.
I’ve got one more Krav session to give this afternoon (after the IP talk by Stephan) and then one of the 2 big parties to end things up. Day 6 (last day :-() starts soon.