The Good Walk Alone

[Wolf DeVoon]

First serialized in the Laissez Faire City Times, available in paperback for the first time, if you click through to Lulu. The Good Walk Alone is historically significant as anarcho-capitalist polemic, presented in an action-adventure saga with plenty of plot twists, graphic language, murder, mayhem, and sex scenes. Probably my best work. At the time it was written (one chapter a week published on the internet every Tuesday for a readership of thousands, Jan-Apr 2000), I was trying to show why the rule of law matters in a free society and why women should enforce the law. My fellow freebooters and renegades thought I was nuts, but they couldn't stop reading each bizarre new episode when it appeared, 16 weeks in row.

Ooops! Lulu just bumped the price to $12.95 - sorry.

Edited August 31, 2007 by Wolf DeVoon

[Barbara Branden]

Wolf, I don't know why you think women should enforce the law, but you may be amused to know that I appointed myself official bouncer at NBI. My reasoning was that a man who was about to be troublesome might become beliggerent with a male bouncer, but if a rather delicate-looking woman asked him, very politely, to be quiet or leave, the odds were great that he'd oblige. And -- the very rare times that there was any trouble -- it worked perfectly.

Barbara

[Brant Gaede]

Wolf, I don't know why you think women should enforce the law, but you may be amused to know that I appointed myself official bouncer at NBI. My reasoning was that a man who was about to be troublesome might become beliggerent with a male bouncer, but if a rather delicate-looking woman asked him, very politely, to be quiet or leave, the odds were great that he'd oblige. And -- the very rare times that there was any trouble -- it worked perfectly.

Barbara, I always thought it was a mistake for NBI to serve alcohol.

--Brant

PS: this was a joke.

Edited September 1, 2007 by Brant Gaede

[Chris Grieb]

In my few occasions at NBI New York I don't think alcohol was available. The only time where it might have available were at the socials which I attended. Barbara wasn't it available by invitation only? I think that since NBI was a business which did not have a liquor license so it could not sold. I don't think NBI could give it away. It would not have been available at any other event because the events were lectures on philosophy.

Edited August 30, 2007 by Chris Grieb

[Wolf DeVoon]

Wolf, I don't know why you think women should enforce the law

Like Mark Twain said: There is only one good sex, the female one. Crime statistics demonstrate that men are the problem. Male cops have not cured the problem. In business, women are more industrious. In finance, they are steadier and less likely to churn a portfolio. But none of these reasons really inspired my theory. I believe that men and women have contrary moral and political purposes. I trust women to do justice (armed defense of innocent liberty). Policing is, as you mentioned, largely a task of persuasion and common sense negotiation. But ultimately it is backed by deadly force and I would rather women decided who to kill and why. That lead me to a female judiciary and by implication female cops. Since women have enormous financial power (70% of all spending decisions), I have politely suggested for some years that women should take responsibility to end violence and dethrone 'might makes right' male antler waving and brute intimidation. As a halfway measure in the right direction, I argued for a U.S. constitutional amendment, giving women the House of Representatives, so that new legislation would require passage by both sexes.

The Good Walk Alone was set in the year 2050, after a general economic and civil collapse a la Atlas Shrugged. Being a simpleton, long ago I asked myself whether a strike of the mind would come to pass or not. I think it has, irreversibly and invisibly. Crisis is danger and opportunity, including the opportunity to rethink law enforcement. If the Executive should be male ("No woman would want to be president"), and the Legislature bicameral (male and female), then symmetry of checks and balances suggests we need a female Judiciary.

W.

Edited August 30, 2007 by Wolf DeVoon

[Brant Gaede]

In my few occasions at NBI New York I don't think alcohol was available. The only time where it might have available were at the socials which I attended. Barbara wasn't it available by invitation only? I think that since NBI was a business which did not have a liquor license so it could not sold. I don't think NBI could give it away. It would not have been available at any other event because the events were lectures on philosophy.

Joke alert! I should have used a smiley face.

--Brant

[Chris Grieb]

Sorry! I was in my super series mood.

[Brant Gaede]

Wolf, I don't know why you think women should enforce the law

Like Mark Twain said: There is only one good sex, the female one. Crime statistics demonstrate that men are the problem. Male cops have not cured the problem. In business, women are more industrious. In finance, they are steadier and less likely to churn a portfolio. But none of these reasons really inspired my theory. I believe that men and women have contrary moral and political purposes. I trust women to do justice (armed defense of innocent liberty). Policing is, as you mentioned, largely a task of persuasion and common sense negotiation. But ultimately it is backed by deadly force and I would rather women decided who to kill and why. That lead me to a female judiciary and by implication female cops. Since women have enormous financial power (70% of all spending decisions), I have politely suggested for some years that women should take responsibility to end violence and dethrone 'might makes right' male antler waving and brute intimidation. As a halfway measure in the right direction, I argued for a U.S. constitutional amendment, giving women the House of Representatives, so that new legislation would require passage by both sexes.

The Good Walk Alone was set in the year 2050, after a general economic and civil collapse a la Atlas Shrugged. Being a simpleton, long ago I asked myself whether a strike of the mind would come to pass or not. I think it has, irreversibly and invisibly. Crisis is danger and opportunity, including the opportunity to rethink law enforcement. If the Executive should be male ("No woman would want to be president"), and the Legislature bicameral (male and female), then symmetry of checks and balances suggests we need a female Judiciary.

W.

If there were no men--never mind how and why--some females would become more like men and in a generation or two welcome back to a bloody, fucked up world.

--Brant

[Barbara Branden]

Wolf, you wrote: "Like Mark Twain said: 'There is only one good sex, the female one.'" I suspect that you --and Twain -- say that because you are not women, just as I think many women who say men are the superior sex believe it because they are not men. The two sexes know whatever they know about each other from the outside, not the inside.

And I could say, when you speak of women's superior sense of justice and their willingness to negotiate: "Well... there's Hillary Clinton and Janet Reno…." But I realize that wouldn't be fair, because you don't intend your theory to be applicable to every woman, only to a majority.

There are several reasons, offhand, that make me doubt your hypothesis that women can be trusted more than men to be just and to choose negotiation rather than force. One reason is that our prisons are progressively being filled, and have been for decades, with women who have committed crimes as heinous as the worst committed by men, crimes that are equally violent if not more so -- punishing their children for disobedience by chaining them in closets for years, starving and beating then; flushing newborn, living babies down toilets or throwing then in Dumpsters to die of starvation and exposure; mutilating the still-living bodies of the men they kill for the $50.00 in their wallets.

Another reason -- and I hope no OL member will put out a contract on me for stating what I see as an obvious fact -- women statistically, more than men, are likely to be swayed by their emotions in making decisions about what is just and what is not. As evidence, the jury's decision in the OJ Simpson trial.

And, very importantly, if one looks at history since women got the vote, one will see no lessening of war or violence, no solutions offered and implemented by women to decrease war and violence at home or throughout the world. During the many years that women fought valiantly for the vote, it was widely declared that when women had an equal hand with men in choosing their governments and in occupying seats of power and influence, they would usher in a Golden Age of worldwide peace and understanding. It has not happened. It has not even begun to happen. As witness, the incredible ferocity of many woman in the Muslim world, (I realize that they do not have the vote, but my point still is valid) including mothers whose sons have blown themselves to bits in order to kill innocent people, and who are cheerfully training their remaining sons to similarly throw their lives away.

And, in my personal experience, I have known a number of men who were more nurturing, kinder, less judgmental, more open to negotiation and discussion when there were differences between us, than most of the women I have known.

In favor of your hypothesis, Wolf, is the fact that men are much more likely than women to tie their self- esteem to being strong, which too often means being macho -- which too often means settling differences by violence. And men tend to be more emotionally repressed than women, which often make them oblivious to the information their emotional reactions might give them.

It is not my intention to denigrate women. Particularly since the beginning of the feminist movement, I have met and talked with scores of intelligent women who are immensely thoughtful and courageous and daring, who have all the admirable qualities that once were associated primarily with men, and who are proud both of their assertiveness and their femininity. Women have indeed come a long way

Certainly there are immense differences between man and women. But they seem, unfortunately, still to be similar in the ways you are concerned with: that is, in their attitudes toward justice and the use of violence. In those areas, it seems that men and women equally tend to be products of our culture, surrendering themselves to its mores and values, and therefore to place a low value on justice. As to who is the superior In those areas, I’d say it’s a draw.

Barbara

[Wolf DeVoon]

Dear Barbara,

I won't quarrel with anything you said. Perhaps we can agree that men and women are different. Very few women choose to be cops. I don't blame them; it's basically unhappy, tedious, dangerous. Unless it was an exclusively female police force in a sheltered Objectivist enclave, which is what The Good Walk Alone explores. A frontier society can't be hidden like Galt's Gulch in the US, despite the ambitions of The Free State Project and various patriot militia rural hideouts. It has to be elsewhere in the Third World, where it's possible to pioneer an exceptionally independent laissez faire community like Hong Kong was (pre-1999).

The purpose of encouraging a female judiciary and female police force is to increase the use of armed force sparingly. No rough and tumble fistfights or machismo. If you see a female cop, you better run, because she's likely to shoot bad guys instead of wrestling them to the ground. It also tilts the social fabric in favor of innocents. Female judges and cops will side with women and children every time, I wager.

I'm sorry, Brant's wrong and you're mistaken, if you say that nothing will change and women are just as dangerous as men. Statistics show men commit 95 percent of all violent crime. Time to disqualify men from further bad behavior and ditch incompetent male law enforcement.

W.

[Brant Gaede]

Dear Barbara,

I'm sorry, Brant's wrong and you're mistaken, if you say that nothing will change and women are just as dangerous as men. Statistics show men commit 95 percent of all violent crime. Time to disqualify men from further bad behavior and ditch incompetent male law enforcement.

This would read better, Wolf, this way: "I'm sorry, you're wrong and Brant's mistaken ...." That's because Brant is never, ever wrong.

--Brant

[Wolf DeVoon]

I should also mention the existence of another book, Laissez Faire Law, also at Lulu. It covers human rights, defacto anarchy, the rule of law, etc -- 25 years of thinking about liberty and public justice. My writing career is completed and finished, so the stuff you find at Lulu is a definitive contribution. Whew! - glad that's over, so I can live like a normal person. Someboy else's turn at the wheel.

P.S. - Quite right, Brant. I'm buying BRKB next week on the dip, if there's a big one.

Edited September 6, 2007 by Wolf DeVoon