Buildabearville codes for credits

American Express Cards

2018.06.04 12:10 bbbb American Express Cards

We discuss Amex offers, Membership Rewards, benefits, offers, maximizing card usage and everything related to "ALL" American Express Cards. Please free to add content and join in the conversation.
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2021.02.13 18:01 SuineGeniuS Voyagerreferralcodes

Voyager Referral Codes Post your own codes in the comments for referral credits. Please be respectful and thank you for visiting.
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2015.12.28 23:45 its-montezuma DCS: Buy & Sell Digital Movie and TV Codes!

A place to buy and sell 4K, HD, and SD Movies Anywhere, Vudu, iTunes, and other Digital Movie and TV codes. RIP UV. Accepted digital currencies vary by seller. Please see the wiki for everything you need to know!
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2024.05.14 07:54 littlemachina How bad is ageism in getting hired these days? Is it worth the college debt (US)?

31 F, southern US here. I messed up my 20s badly due to undiagnosed autism and not knowing how to deal with things correctly + no parental guidance. Out of high school I had a free ride to university and dropped out early due to mental health issues. I didn’t know how financial aid worked and was afraid of loans so I just worked various dead-end jobs for years thinking I could never return to school since I lost my scholarships. At 27 I finally got over my fear and went back to community college for an associate’s degree in web development. It was so easy, I graduated with a 4.0 but I legitimately cannot really code at a professional level. I applied to a few places but I quickly lost motivation after receiving some interviews that went nowhere, or receiving coding tests that were extremely above my level.
I looked into getting a bachelor’s degree in computer science only to learn that almost none of my credits would transfer to university. Also my credits from AP tests I took in high school have apparently expired. I have to start from square zero. I have a job and make money but part of me is disappointed that I’ll never be a career woman. I want to be proud I guess. If I start over and graduate at around 36, is it worth the debt to try to get a job nearing 40? I’m thinking of getting into copy-editing since they seem to have a lot of remote work. I’ve honestly lost interest in coding. Please let me know if you have experience with this! Thanks in advance
submitted by littlemachina to findapath [link] [comments]


2024.05.14 07:39 Used_Seaweed4829 Remote Data Entry Job Scam?

So, I have been on the hunt for a remote entry level position for a while now. This company called Avstera Therapeutics reached out to me, via text, saying they would like to interview me for the position. I received a “Verification/Hiring code” to use for the interview. The interview process was via Microsoft Teams, text only, and I texted with a lady called Megan. The entire process lasted about an hour, and almost 10 minutes after the interview concluded, I was offered a job. I was offered $30 an hour during two weeks of training, then $35 an hour after training. So naturally, I accepted. I just started training last week and they said they would pay off my credit card debt on the first day of training, so they gave me an account and routing number to use the pay the debt and it said the payment posted and all was well…. Until today, which is a week later and the credit card company denied the payment due to insufficient funds. And they sent me a check for “office equipment” and my bank said they will not deposit the check. I’ve been “training” for a week now and the only things we have discussed is credit card payment and the check for “office equipment”. I’m starting to feel scammed and like this is a little too good to be true. Has anyone had this experience with Avstera Therapeutics, or am I being scammed??
submitted by Used_Seaweed4829 to Scamalert_sg [link] [comments]


2024.05.14 07:31 PyTsRs I made a QR code API as a service with the most advanced features with 5-50x better price than the others for you

Hi, I'm Liam - the creator of QR-API.com that just launched on PH: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/qr-api-com.
Looking at existing QR code API solutions, I see that either they are too expensive - subscription plan only give you a few thousands requests per month, or too simple - no advanced styling for QR code. So, I decided to enhance the experience of QR code API to the next level: most powerful features and keep building, with 5-50x better price, no monthly subscription - pay credits for what you need.
Currently, the bellow features are working: - API for static QR code - Log, track and export report for API requests - Upload and manage logos - Multiple API keys, set specific limit quota for each key - Save QR code config as preset (template), make endpoint cleaner And I plan to bring more features: - Bulk QR codes generate - More advanced templates: QR code embeded in vCard, WiFi sticker,... - QR code reader - Nocode platforms integration
This is my first public indie product (actually the first is a bitly clone, but I don't think I will public it), I hope you can try it and give me feedback with free 1000 quota. Love to hear from you all.
PS: I have some discount for you, too: PH50OFF (first 10 purchases) and PH30OFF (first 50 purchases).
submitted by PyTsRs to SideProject [link] [comments]


2024.05.14 07:19 DolphinGaming101 Square Enix Support Tickets

Hello! So, I'm a newer player who has officially purchased the game. However, my 30 day free trial period will be expiring over the upcoming weekend, so I went to properly renew it for another 30 days. However, I heard that people were having troubles with using their credit cards, so I tried to purchase Crysta. Well, I kept getting error code [i2501] whenever I selected a purchase option for any amount of Crysta. After some research, I saw it could be because I accidentally overloaded the system when clicking through tabs. I guess I made the mistake of using the back button on my mouse, which brought up the page errors about there being data needed for resubmission.
Long story short, I put in a ticket, but I haven't gotten a confirmation email in response, and there doesn't seem to be any way to review tickets. Is there any advice that can be given for a lil' sprout in this situation? Any help and advice is appreciated >.<
submitted by DolphinGaming101 to ffxiv [link] [comments]


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submitted by Designer_Ad7432 to TemuCodesUSA [link] [comments]


2024.05.14 07:10 Designer_Ad7432 30% off with the coupon code below!

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submitted by Designer_Ad7432 to TemuNewUsersASAp [link] [comments]


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About Temu Temu, which stands for Team Up, Price Down, is an e-commerce company that connects consumers with millions of merchandise partners, manufacturers and brands with the mission to empower them to live their best lives. Temu is committed to offering the most affordable quality products to enable consumers and merchandise partners to fulfill their dreams in an inclusive environment. Temu was founded in Boston, Massachusetts in 2022. Lightning Deals Temu’s Lightning Deals are limited-time flash discounts with significant discounts on select items. New offers are added daily and featured directly on the homepage. There will be discounts in several categories, including home goods, sports gear, jewelry, and gifts.
On top of these flash promotions, the Temu lightning deals can help you find 50-90% off items. Promotional banners with links to individual discount pages will be displayed throughout the site.
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submitted by Designer_Ad7432 to Temucouponcodesdaily [link] [comments]


2024.05.14 06:54 ssssomeguy Clarification on Sodexo card

Clarification on Sodexo card
I have an option to apply for Sodexo food voucher with 1,100 per month (13,200 per annum) limit.
From what I have read so far, the selected amount will get deducted from my in-hand salary each month and will be credited to the Sodexo card, from which I can purchase my meals and groceries.
But almost everywhere a Rs.50 limit is mentioned for it to be tax free. I don't understand this. Can I purchase stuff upto only Rs. 50, or how does it work?
Also, my office canteen uses UPI for payment and has a QR code, so will I he able to use the Sodexo app to scan that QR and pay?
submitted by ssssomeguy to IndiaTax [link] [comments]


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submitted by FuelSufficient6989 to Referralpage [link] [comments]


2024.05.14 06:36 crex82 Insurance not covering bisalp

My doctor is refusing to do a tubal since bisalp is the standard and I agree with her. I also have endometriosis so removal of my tubes might help with my chronic pain. However, my insurance company (allied benefits through my employer) is saying bisalp is not a preventative surgery. They are also saying I cannot appeal until I have the surgery done and have a claim. The hospital is estimating the bill at $27,000.
I found the thread on this forum about trying to get the bisalp covered. I explained it to my insurance company and they straight up said they don't recommend I go through with the procedure because my plan doesn't cover it. My doctor wrote an appeal letter and I am working with a patient advocate that is independent from either party. The doctor refused to code the bisalp as "tubal via bisalp." My plan states it's ACA compliant, but is not explicit about which methods of sterilization it covers. Customer service said they "couldn't tell me" which methods were covered.
I will update as to what I decide to do and how the appeal process goes. I'm preparing myself to be a real pain in the ass for the insurance company to encourage the appeal. I can't take the medication to treat my endometriosis while on hormonal bc and do not trust condoms/other methods. I need it 100% protected. I really don't want that huge bill on my credit as it will have to go to collections. My hospital is refusing to do repayment plans with me because I had one bill I didn't know I had sent to collections.
submitted by crex82 to sterilization [link] [comments]


2024.05.14 06:31 Anenome5 Society without a State

https://mises.org/mises-daily/society-without-state
In attempting to outline how a “society without a state” — that is, an anarchist society — might function successfully, I would first like to defuse two common but mistaken criticisms of this approach. First, is the argument that in providing for such defense or protection services as courts, police, or even law itself, I am simply smuggling the state back into society in another form, and that therefore the system I am both analyzing and advocating is not “really” anarchism. This sort of criticism can only involve us in an endless and arid dispute over semantics. Let me say from the beginning that I define the state as that institution which possesses one or both (almost always both) of the following properties: (1) it acquires its income by the physical coercion known as “taxation”; and (2) it asserts and usually obtains a coerced monopoly of the provision of defense service (police and courts) over a given territorial area. An institution not possessing either of these properties is not and cannot be, in accordance with my definition, a state. On the other hand, I define anarchist society as one where there is no legal possibility for coercive aggression against the person or property of an individual. Anarchists oppose the state because it has its very being in such aggression, namely, the expropriation of private property through taxation, the coercive exclusion of other providers of defense service from its territory, and all of the other depredations and coercions that are built upon these twin foci of invasions of individual rights.
Nor is our definition of the state arbitrary, for these two characteristics have been possessed by what is generally acknowledged to be states throughout recorded history. The state, by its use of physical coercion, has arrogated to itself a compulsory monopoly of defense services over its territorial jurisdiction. But it is certainly conceptually possible for such services to be supplied by private, non-state institutions, and indeed such services have historically been supplied by other organizations than the state. To be opposed to the state is then not necessarily to be opposed to services that have often been linked with it; to be opposed to the state does not necessarily imply that we must be opposed to police protection, courts, arbitration, the minting of money, postal service, or roads and highways. Some anarchists have indeed been opposed to police and to all physical coercion in defense of person and property, but this is not inherent in and is fundamentally irrelevant to the anarchist position, which is precisely marked by opposition to all physical coercion invasive of, or aggressing against, person and property.
The crucial role of taxation may be seen in the fact that the state is the only institution or organization in society which regularly and systematically acquires its income through the use of physical coercion. All other individuals or organizations acquire their income voluntarily, either (1) through the voluntary sale of goods and services to consumers on the market, or (2) through voluntary gifts or donations by members or other donors. If I cease or refrain from purchasing Wheaties on the market, the Wheaties producers do not come after me with a gun or the threat of imprisonment to force me to purchase; if I fail to join the American Philosophical Association, the association may not force me to join or prevent me from giving up my membership. Only the state can do so; only the state can confiscate my property or put me in jail if I do not pay its tax tribute. Therefore, only the state regularly exists and has its very being by means of coercive depredations on private property.
Neither is it legitimate to challenge this sort of analysis by claiming that in some other sense, the purchase of Wheaties or membership in the APA is in some way “coercive.” Anyone who is still unhappy with this use of the term “coercion” can simply eliminate the word from this discussion and substitute for it “physical violence or the threat thereof,” with the only loss being in literary style rather than in the substance of the argument. What anarchism proposes to do, then, is to abolish the state, that is, to abolish the regularized institution of aggressive coercion.
It need hardly be added that the state habitually builds upon its coercive source of income by adding a host of other aggressions upon society, ranging from economic controls to the prohibition of pornography to the compelling of religious observance to the mass murder of civilians in organized warfare. In short, the state, in the words of Albert Jay Nock, “claims and exercises a monopoly of crime” over its territorial area.
The second criticism I would like to defuse before beginning the main body of the paper is the common charge that anarchists “assume that all people are good” and that without the state no crime would be committed. In short, that anarchism assumes that with the abolition of the state a New Anarchist Man will emerge, cooperative, humane, and benevolent, so that no problem of crime will then plague the society. I confess that I do not understand the basis for this charge. Whatever other schools of anarchism profess — and I do not believe that they are open to the charge — I certainly do not adopt this view. I assume with most observers that mankind is a mixture of good and evil, of cooperative and criminal tendencies. In my view, the anarchist society is one which maximizes the tendencies for the good and the cooperative, while it minimizes both the opportunity and the moral legitimacy of the evil and the criminal. If the anarchist view is correct and the state is indeed the great legalized and socially legitimated channel for all manner of antisocial crime — theft, oppression, mass murder — on a massive scale, then surely the abolition of such an engine of crime can do nothing but favor the good in man and discourage the bad.
A further point: in a profound sense, no social system, whether anarchist or statist, can work at all unless most people are “good” in the sense that they are not all hell-bent upon assaulting and robbing their neighbors. If everyone were so disposed, no amount of protection, whether state or private, could succeed in staving off chaos. Furthermore, the more that people are disposed to be peaceful and not aggress against their neighbors, the more successfully any social system will work, and the fewer resources will need to be devoted to police protection. The anarchist view holds that, given the “nature of man,” given the degree of goodness or badness at any point in time, anarchism will maximize the opportunities for the good and minimize the channels for the bad. The rest depends on the values held by the individual members of society. The only further point that need be made is that by eliminating the living example and the social legitimacy of the massive legalized crime of the state, anarchism will to a large extent promote peaceful values in the minds of the public.
We cannot of course deal here with the numerous arguments in favor of anarchism or against the state, moral, political, and economic. Nor can we take up the various goods and services now provided by the state and show how private individuals and groups will be able to supply them far more efficiently on the free market. Here we can only deal with perhaps the most difficult area, the area where it is almost universally assumed that the state must exist and act, even if it is only a “necessary evil” instead of a positive good: the vital realm of defense or protection of person and property against aggression. Surely, it is universally asserted, the state is at least vitally necessary to provide police protection, the judicial resolution of disputes and enforcement of contracts, and the creation of the law itself that is to be enforced. My contention is that all of these admittedly necessary services of protection can be satisfactorily and efficiently supplied by private persons and institutions on the free market.
One important caveat before we begin the body of this paper: new proposals such as anarchism are almost always gauged against the implicit assumption that the present, or statist system works to perfection. Any lacunae or difficulties with the picture of the anarchist society are considered net liabilities, and enough to dismiss anarchism out of hand. It is, in short, implicitly assumed that the state is doing its self-assumed job of protecting person and property to perfection. We cannot here go into the reasons why the state is bound to suffer inherently from grave flaws and inefficiencies in such a task. All we need do now is to point to the black and unprecedented record of the state through history: no combination of private marauders can possibly begin to match the state’s unremitting record of theft, confiscation, oppression, and mass murder. No collection of Mafia or private bank robbers can begin to compare with all the Hiroshimas, Dresdens, and Lidices and their analogues through the history of mankind.
This point can be made more philosophically: it is illegitimate to compare the merits of anarchism and statism by starting with the present system as the implicit given and then critically examining only the anarchist alternative. What we must do is to begin at the zero point and then critically examine both suggested alternatives. Suppose, for example, that we were all suddenly dropped down on the earth de novo and that we were all then confronted with the question of what societal arrangements to adopt. And suppose then that someone suggested: “We are all bound to suffer from those of us who wish to aggress against their fellow men. Let us then solve this problem of crime by handing all of our weapons to the Jones family, over there, by giving all of our ultimate power to settle disputes to that family. In that way, with their monopoly of coercion and of ultimate decision making, the Jones family will be able to protect each of us from each other.” I submit that this proposal would get very short shrift, except perhaps from the Jones family themselves. And yet this is precisely the common argument for the existence of the state. When we start from the zero point, as in the case of the Jones family, the question of “who will guard the guardians?” becomes not simply an abiding lacuna in the theory of the state but an overwhelming barrier to its existence.
A final caveat: the anarchist is always at a disadvantage in attempting to forecast the shape of the future anarchist society. For it is impossible for observers to predict voluntary social arrangements, including the provision of goods and services, on the free market. Suppose, for example, that this were the year 1874 and that someone predicted that eventually there would be a radio-manufacturing industry. To be able to make such a forecast successfully, does he have to be challenged to state immediately how many radio manufacturers there would be a century hence, how big they would be, where they would be located, what technology and marketing techniques they would use, and so on? Obviously, such a challenge would make no sense, and in a profound sense the same is true of those who demand a precise portrayal of the pattern of protection activities on the market. Anarchism advocates the dissolution of the state into social and market arrangements, and these arrangements are far more flexible and less predictable than political institutions. The most that we can do, then, is to offer broad guidelines and perspectives on the shape of a projected anarchist society.
One important point to make here is that the advance of modern technology makes anarchistic arrangements increasingly feasible. Take, for example, the case of lighthouses, where it is often charged that it is unfeasible for private lighthouse operators to row out to each ship to charge it for use of the light. Apart from the fact that this argument ignores the successful existence of private lighthouses in earlier days, as in England in the eighteenth century, another vital consideration is that modern electronic technology makes charging each ship for the light far more feasible. Thus, the ship would have to have paid for an electronically controlled beam which could then be automatically turned on for those ships which had paid for the service.
Let us turn now to the problem of how disputes — in particular disputes over alleged violations of person and property — would be resolved in an anarchist society. First, it should be noted that all disputes involve two parties: the plaintiff, the alleged victim of the crime or tort and the defendant, the alleged aggressor. In many cases of broken contract, of course, each of the two parties alleging that the other is the culprit is at the same time a plaintiff and a defendant.
An important point to remember is that any society, be it statist or anarchist, has to have some way of resolving disputes that will gain a majority consensus in society. There would be no need for courts or arbitrators if everyone were omniscient and knew instantaneously which persons were guilty of any given crime or violation of contract. Since none of us is omniscient, there has to be some method of deciding who is the criminal or lawbreaker which will gain legitimacy; in short, whose decision will be accepted by the great majority of the public.
In the first place, a dispute may be resolved voluntarily between the two parties themselves, either unaided or with the help of a third mediator. This poses no problem, and will automatically be accepted by society at large. It is so accepted even now, much less in a society imbued with the anarchistic values of peaceful cooperation and agreement. Secondly and similarly, the two parties, unable to reach agreement, may decide to submit voluntarily to the decision of an arbitrator. This agreement may arise either after a dispute has arisen, or be provided for in advance in the original contract. Again, there is no problem in such an arrangement gaining legitimacy. Even in the present statist era, the notorious inefficiency and coercive and cumbersome procedures of the politically run government courts has led increasing numbers of citizens to turn to voluntary and expert arbitration for a speedy and harmonious settling of disputes.
Thus, William C. Wooldridge has written that
Wooldridge adds the important point that, in addition to the speed of arbitration procedures vis-à-vis the courts, the arbitrators can proceed as experts in disregard of the official government law; in a profound sense, then, they serve to create a voluntary body of private law. “In other words,” states Wooldridge, “the system of extralegal, voluntary courts has progressed hand in hand with a body of private law; the rules of the state are circumvented by the same process that circumvents the forums established for the settlement of disputes over those rules…. In short, a private agreement between two people, a bilateral “law,” has supplanted the official law. The writ of the sovereign has cease to run, and for it is substituted a rule tacitly or explicitly agreed to by the parties. Wooldridge concludes that “if an arbitrator can choose to ignore a penal damage rule or the statute of limitations applicable to the claim before him (and it is generally conceded that he has that power), arbitration can be viewed as a practically revolutionary instrument for self-liberation from the law….”2
It may be objected that arbitration only works successfully because the courts enforce the award of the arbitrator. Wooldridge points out, however, that arbitration was unenforceable in the American courts before 1920, but that this did not prevent voluntary arbitration from being successful and expanding in the United States and in England. He points, furthermore, to the successful operations of merchant courts since the Middle Ages, those courts which successfully developed the entire body of the law merchant. None of those courts possessed the power of enforcement. He might have added the private courts of shippers which developed the body of admiralty law in a similar way.
How then did these private, “anarchistic,” and voluntary courts ensure the acceptance of their decisions? By the method of social ostracism, and by the refusal to deal any further with the offending merchant. This method of voluntary “enforcement,” indeed proved highly successful. Wooldridge writes that “the merchants’ courts were voluntary, and if a man ignored their judgment, he could not be sent to jail…. Nevertheless, it is apparent that … [their] decisions were generally respected even by the losers; otherwise people would never have used them in the first place…. Merchants made their courts work simply by agreeing to abide by the results. The merchant who broke the understanding would not be sent to jail, to be sure, but neither would he long continue to be a merchant, for the compliance exacted by his fellows … proved if anything more effective than physical coercion.”3 Nor did this voluntary method fail to work in modern times. Wooldridge writes that it was precisely in the years before 1920, when arbitration awards could not be enforced in the courts,
It should also be pointed out that modern technology makes even more feasible the collection and dissemination of information about people’s credit ratings and records of keeping or violating their contracts or arbitration agreements. Presumably, an anarchist society would see the expansion of this sort of dissemination of data and thereby facilitate the ostracism or boycotting of contract and arbitration violators.
How would arbitrators be selected in an anarchist society? In the same way as they are chosen now, and as they were chosen in the days of strictly voluntary arbitration: the arbitrators with the best reputation for efficiency and probity would be chosen by the various parties on the market. As in other processes of the market, the arbitrators with the best record in settling disputes will come to gain an increasing amount of business, and those with poor records will no longer enjoy clients and will have to shift to another line of endeavor. Here it must be emphasized that parties in dispute will seek out those arbitrators with the best reputation for both expertise and impartiality and that inefficient or biased arbitrators will rapidly have to find another occupation.
Thus, the Tannehills emphasize:
If desired, furthermore, the contracting parties could provide in advance for a series of arbitrators:
Arbitration, then, poses little difficulty for a portrayal of the free society. But what of torts or crimes of aggression where there has been no contract? Or suppose that the breaker of a contract defies the arbitration award? Is ostracism enough? In short, how can courts develop in the free-market anarchist society which will have the power to enforce judgments against criminals or contract breakers?
In the wide sense, defense service consists of guards or police who use force in defending person and property against attack, and judges or courts whose role is to use socially accepted procedures to determine who the criminals or tortfeasors are, as well as to enforce judicial awards, such as damages or the keeping of contracts. On the free market, many scenarios are possible on the relationship between the private courts and the police; they may be “vertically integrated,” for example, or their services may be supplied by separate firms. Furthermore, it seems likely that police service will be supplied by insurance companies who will provide crime insurance to their clients. In that case, insurance companies will pay off the victims of crime or the breaking of contracts or arbitration awards and then pursue the aggressors in court to recoup their losses. There is a natural market connection between insurance companies and defense service, since they need pay out less benefits in proportion as they are able to keep down the rate of crime.
Courts might either charge fees for their services, with the losers of cases obliged to pay court costs, or else they may subsist on monthly or yearly premiums by their clients, who may be either individuals or the police or insurance agencies. Suppose, for example, that Smith is an aggrieved party, either because he has been assaulted or robbed, or because an arbitration award in his favor has not been honored. Smith believes that Jones is the party guilty of the crime. Smith then goes to a court, Court A, of which he is a client, and brings charges against Jones as a defendant. In my view, the hallmark of an anarchist society is one where no man may legally compel someone who is not a convicted criminal to do anything, since that would be aggression against an innocent man’s person or property. Therefore, Court A can only invite rather than subpoena Jones to attend his trial. Of course, if Jones refused to appear or send a representative, his side of the case will not be heard. The trial of Jones proceeds. Suppose that Court A finds Jones innocent. In my view, part of the generally accepted law code of the anarchist society (on which see further below) is that this must end the matter unless Smith can prove charges of gross incompetence or bias on the part of the court.
Suppose, next, that Court A finds Jones guilty. Jones might accept the verdict, because he too is a client of the same court, because he knows he is guilty, or for some other reason. In that case, Court A proceeds to exercise judgment against Jones. Neither of these instances poses very difficult problems for our picture of the anarchist society. But suppose, instead, that Jones contests the decision; he then goes to his court, Court B, and the case is retried there. Suppose that Court B, too, finds Jones guilty. Again, it seems to me that the accepted law code of the anarchist society will assert that this ends the matter; both parties have had their say in courts which each has selected, and the decision for guilt is unanimous.
Suppose, however, the most difficult case: that Court B finds Jones innocent. The two courts, each subscribed to by one of the two parties, have split their verdicts. In that case, the two courts will submit the case to an appeals court, or arbitrator, which the two courts agree upon. There seems to be no real difficulty about the concept of an appeals court. As in the case of arbitration contracts, it seems very likely that the various private courts in the society will have prior agreements to submit their disputes to a particular appeals court. How will the appeals judges be chosen? Again, as in the case of arbitrators or of the first judges on the free market, they will be chosen for their expertise and their reputation for efficiency, honesty, and integrity. Obviously, appeals judges who are inefficient or biased will scarcely be chosen by courts who will have a dispute. The point here is that there is no need for a legally established or institutionalized single, monopoly appeals court system, as states now provide. There is no reason why there cannot arise a multitude of efficient and honest appeals judges who will be selected by the disputant courts, just as there are numerous private arbitrators on the market today. The appeals court renders its decision, and the courts proceed to enforce it if, in our example, Jones is considered guilty — unless, of course, Jones can prove bias in some other court proceedings.
No society can have unlimited judicial appeals, for in that case there would be no point to having judges or courts at all. Therefore, every society, whether statist or anarchist, will have to have some socially accepted cutoff point for trials and appeals. My suggestion is the rule that the agreement of any two courts, be decisive. “Two” is not an arbitrary figure, for it reflects the fact that there are two parties, the plaintiff and the defendant, to any alleged crime or contract dispute.
If the courts are to be empowered to enforce decision against guilty parties, does this not bring back the state in another form and thereby negate anarchism? No, for at the beginning of this paper I explicitly defined anarchism in such a way as not to rule out the use of defensive force — force in defense of person and property — by privately supported agencies. In the same way, it is not bringing back the state to allow persons to use force to defend themselves against aggression, or to hire guards or police agencies to defend them.
It should be noted, however, that in the anarchist society there will be no “district attorney” to press charges on behalf of “society.” Only the victims will press charges as the plaintiffs. If, then, these victims should happen to be absolute pacifists who are opposed even to defensive force, then they will simply not press charges in the courts or otherwise retaliate against those who have aggressed against them. In a free society that would be their right. If the victim should suffer from murder, then his heir would have the right to press the charges.
What of the Hatfield-and-McCoy problem? Suppose that a Hatfield kills a McCoy, and that McCoy’s heir does not belong to a private insurance, police agency, or court, and decides to retaliate himself? Since under anarchism there can be no coercion of the noncriminal, McCoy would have the perfect right to do so. No one may be compelled to bring his case to a court. Indeed, since the right to hire police or courts flows from the right of self-defense against aggression, it would be inconsistent and in contradiction to the very basis of the free society to institute such compulsion.
Suppose, then, that the surviving McCoy finds what he believes to be the guilty Hatfield and kills him in turn? What then? This is fine, except that McCoy may have to worry about charges being brought against him by a surviving Hatfield. Here it must be emphasized that in the law of the anarchist society based on defense against aggression, the courts would not be able to proceed against McCoy if in fact he killed the right Hatfield. His problem would arise if the courts should find that he made a grievous mistake and killed the wrong man; in that case, he in turn would be found guilty of murder. Surely, in most instances, individuals will wish to obviate such problems by taking their case to a court and thereby gain social acceptability for their defensive retaliation — not for the act of retaliation but for the correctness of deciding who the criminal in any given case might be. The purpose of the judicial process, indeed, is to find a way of general agreement on who might be the criminal or contract breaker in any given case. The judicial process is not a good in itself; thus, in the case of an assassination, such as Jack Ruby’s murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, on public television, there is no need for a complex judicial process, since the name of the murderer is evident to all.
Will not the possibility exist of a private court that may turn venal and dishonest, or of a private police force that turns criminal and extorts money by coercion? Of course such an event may occur, given the propensities of human nature. Anarchism is not a moral cure-all. But the important point is that market forces exist to place severe checks on such possibilities, especially in contrast to a society where a state exists. For, in the first place, judges, like arbitrators, will prosper on the market in proportion to their reputation for efficiency and impartiality. Secondly, on the free market important checks and balances exist against venal courts or criminal police forces. Namely, that there are competing courts and police agencies to whom victims may turn for redress. If the “Prudential Police Agency” should turn outlaw and extract revenue from victims by coercion, the latter would have the option of turning to the “Mutual” or “Equitable” Police Agency for defense and for pressing charges against Prudential. These are the genuine “checks and balances” of the free market, genuine in contrast to the phony check and balances of a state system, where all the alleged “balancing” agencies are in the hands of one monopoly government. Indeed, given the monopoly “protection service” of a state, what is there to prevent a state from using its monopoly channels of coercion to extort money from the public? What are the checks and limits of the state? None, except for the extremely difficult course of revolution against a power with all of the guns in its hands. In fact, the state provides an easy, legitimated channel for crime and aggression, since it has its very being in the crime of tax theft, and the coerced monopoly of “protection.” It is the state, indeed, that functions as a mighty “protection racket” on a giant and massive scale. It is the state that says: “Pay us for your ‘protection’ or else.” In the light of the massive and inherent activities of the state, the danger of a “protection racket” emerging from one or more private police agencies is relatively small indeed.
Moreover, it must be emphasized that a crucial element in the power of the state is its legitimacy in the eyes of the majority of the public, the fact that after centuries of propaganda, the depredations of the state are looked upon rather as benevolent services. Taxation is generally not seen as theft, nor war as mass murder, nor conscription as slavery. Should a private police agency turn outlaw, should “Prudential” become a protection racket, it would then lack the social legitimacy which the state has managed to accrue to itself over the centuries. “Prudential” would be seen by all as bandits, rather than as legitimate or divinely appointed “sovereigns” bent on promoting the “common good” or the “general welfare.” And lacking such legitimacy, “Prudential” would have to face the wrath of the public and the defense and retaliation of the other private defense agencies, the police and courts, on the free market. Given these inherent checks and limits, a successful transformation from a free society to bandit rule becomes most unlikely. Indeed, historically, it has been very difficult for a state to arise to supplant a stateless society; usually, it has come about through external conquest rather than by evolution from within a society.
Within the anarchist camp, there has been much dispute on whether the private courts would have to be bound by a basic, common law code. Ingenious attempts have been made to work out a system where the laws or standards of decision-making by the courts would differ completely from one to another.7 But in my view all would have to abide by the basic law code, in particular, prohibition of aggression against person and property, in order to fulfill our definition of anarchism as a system which provides no legal sanction for such aggression. Suppose, for example, that one group of people in society holds that all redheads are demons who deserve to be shot on sight. Suppose that Jones, one of this group, shoots Smith, a redhead. Suppose that Smith or his heir presses charges in a court, but that Jones’s court, in philosophic agreement with Jones, finds him innocent therefore. It seems to me that in order to be considered legitimate, any court would have to follow the basic libertarian law code of the inviolate right of person and property. For otherwise, courts might legally subscribe to a code which sanctions such aggression in various cases, and which to that extent would violate the definition of anarchism and introduce, if not the state, then a strong element of statishness or legalized aggression into the society.
But again I see no insuperable difficulties here. For in that case, anarchists, in agitating for their creed, will simply include in their agitation the idea of a general libertarian law code as part and parcel of the anarchist creed of abolition of legalized aggression against person or property in the society.
In contrast to the general law code, other aspects of court decisions could legitimately vary in accordance with the market or the wishes of the clients; for example, the language the cases will be conducted in, the number of judges to be involved, and so on.
There are other problems of the basic law code which there is no time to go into here: for example, the definition of just property titles or the question of legitimate punishment of convicted offenders — though the latter problem of course exists in statist legal systems as well.8 The basic point, however, is that the state is not needed to arrive at legal principles or their elaboration: indeed, much of the common law, the law merchant, admiralty law, and private law in general, grew up apart from the state, by judges not making the law but finding it on the basis of agreed-upon principles derived either from custom or reason.9 The idea that the state is needed to make law is as much a myth as that the state is needed to supply postal or police services.
Enough has been said here, I believe, to indicate that an anarchist system for settling disputes would be both viable and self-subsistent: that once adopted, it could work and continue indefinitely. How to arrive at that system is of course a very different problem, but certainly at the very least it will not likely come about unless people are convinced of its workability, are convinced, in short, that the state is not a necessary evil.

[Murray Rothbard delivered this talk 32 years ago today at the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy (ASPLP), Washington, DC: December 28, 1974. It was first published in The Libertarian Forum, volume 7.1, January 1975, available in PDF and ePub.]
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2024.05.14 06:30 Anenome5 Society without a State - Rothbard

https://mises.org/mises-daily/society-without-state
In attempting to outline how a “society without a state” — that is, an anarchist society — might function successfully, I would first like to defuse two common but mistaken criticisms of this approach. First, is the argument that in providing for such defense or protection services as courts, police, or even law itself, I am simply smuggling the state back into society in another form, and that therefore the system I am both analyzing and advocating is not “really” anarchism. This sort of criticism can only involve us in an endless and arid dispute over semantics. Let me say from the beginning that I define the state as that institution which possesses one or both (almost always both) of the following properties: (1) it acquires its income by the physical coercion known as “taxation”; and (2) it asserts and usually obtains a coerced monopoly of the provision of defense service (police and courts) over a given territorial area. An institution not possessing either of these properties is not and cannot be, in accordance with my definition, a state. On the other hand, I define anarchist society as one where there is no legal possibility for coercive aggression against the person or property of an individual. Anarchists oppose the state because it has its very being in such aggression, namely, the expropriation of private property through taxation, the coercive exclusion of other providers of defense service from its territory, and all of the other depredations and coercions that are built upon these twin foci of invasions of individual rights.
Nor is our definition of the state arbitrary, for these two characteristics have been possessed by what is generally acknowledged to be states throughout recorded history. The state, by its use of physical coercion, has arrogated to itself a compulsory monopoly of defense services over its territorial jurisdiction. But it is certainly conceptually possible for such services to be supplied by private, non-state institutions, and indeed such services have historically been supplied by other organizations than the state. To be opposed to the state is then not necessarily to be opposed to services that have often been linked with it; to be opposed to the state does not necessarily imply that we must be opposed to police protection, courts, arbitration, the minting of money, postal service, or roads and highways. Some anarchists have indeed been opposed to police and to all physical coercion in defense of person and property, but this is not inherent in and is fundamentally irrelevant to the anarchist position, which is precisely marked by opposition to all physical coercion invasive of, or aggressing against, person and property.
The crucial role of taxation may be seen in the fact that the state is the only institution or organization in society which regularly and systematically acquires its income through the use of physical coercion. All other individuals or organizations acquire their income voluntarily, either (1) through the voluntary sale of goods and services to consumers on the market, or (2) through voluntary gifts or donations by members or other donors. If I cease or refrain from purchasing Wheaties on the market, the Wheaties producers do not come after me with a gun or the threat of imprisonment to force me to purchase; if I fail to join the American Philosophical Association, the association may not force me to join or prevent me from giving up my membership. Only the state can do so; only the state can confiscate my property or put me in jail if I do not pay its tax tribute. Therefore, only the state regularly exists and has its very being by means of coercive depredations on private property.
Neither is it legitimate to challenge this sort of analysis by claiming that in some other sense, the purchase of Wheaties or membership in the APA is in some way “coercive.” Anyone who is still unhappy with this use of the term “coercion” can simply eliminate the word from this discussion and substitute for it “physical violence or the threat thereof,” with the only loss being in literary style rather than in the substance of the argument. What anarchism proposes to do, then, is to abolish the state, that is, to abolish the regularized institution of aggressive coercion.
It need hardly be added that the state habitually builds upon its coercive source of income by adding a host of other aggressions upon society, ranging from economic controls to the prohibition of pornography to the compelling of religious observance to the mass murder of civilians in organized warfare. In short, the state, in the words of Albert Jay Nock, “claims and exercises a monopoly of crime” over its territorial area.
The second criticism I would like to defuse before beginning the main body of the paper is the common charge that anarchists “assume that all people are good” and that without the state no crime would be committed. In short, that anarchism assumes that with the abolition of the state a New Anarchist Man will emerge, cooperative, humane, and benevolent, so that no problem of crime will then plague the society. I confess that I do not understand the basis for this charge. Whatever other schools of anarchism profess — and I do not believe that they are open to the charge — I certainly do not adopt this view. I assume with most observers that mankind is a mixture of good and evil, of cooperative and criminal tendencies. In my view, the anarchist society is one which maximizes the tendencies for the good and the cooperative, while it minimizes both the opportunity and the moral legitimacy of the evil and the criminal. If the anarchist view is correct and the state is indeed the great legalized and socially legitimated channel for all manner of antisocial crime — theft, oppression, mass murder — on a massive scale, then surely the abolition of such an engine of crime can do nothing but favor the good in man and discourage the bad.
A further point: in a profound sense, no social system, whether anarchist or statist, can work at all unless most people are “good” in the sense that they are not all hell-bent upon assaulting and robbing their neighbors. If everyone were so disposed, no amount of protection, whether state or private, could succeed in staving off chaos. Furthermore, the more that people are disposed to be peaceful and not aggress against their neighbors, the more successfully any social system will work, and the fewer resources will need to be devoted to police protection. The anarchist view holds that, given the “nature of man,” given the degree of goodness or badness at any point in time, anarchism will maximize the opportunities for the good and minimize the channels for the bad. The rest depends on the values held by the individual members of society. The only further point that need be made is that by eliminating the living example and the social legitimacy of the massive legalized crime of the state, anarchism will to a large extent promote peaceful values in the minds of the public.
We cannot of course deal here with the numerous arguments in favor of anarchism or against the state, moral, political, and economic. Nor can we take up the various goods and services now provided by the state and show how private individuals and groups will be able to supply them far more efficiently on the free market. Here we can only deal with perhaps the most difficult area, the area where it is almost universally assumed that the state must exist and act, even if it is only a “necessary evil” instead of a positive good: the vital realm of defense or protection of person and property against aggression. Surely, it is universally asserted, the state is at least vitally necessary to provide police protection, the judicial resolution of disputes and enforcement of contracts, and the creation of the law itself that is to be enforced. My contention is that all of these admittedly necessary services of protection can be satisfactorily and efficiently supplied by private persons and institutions on the free market.
One important caveat before we begin the body of this paper: new proposals such as anarchism are almost always gauged against the implicit assumption that the present, or statist system works to perfection. Any lacunae or difficulties with the picture of the anarchist society are considered net liabilities, and enough to dismiss anarchism out of hand. It is, in short, implicitly assumed that the state is doing its self-assumed job of protecting person and property to perfection. We cannot here go into the reasons why the state is bound to suffer inherently from grave flaws and inefficiencies in such a task. All we need do now is to point to the black and unprecedented record of the state through history: no combination of private marauders can possibly begin to match the state’s unremitting record of theft, confiscation, oppression, and mass murder. No collection of Mafia or private bank robbers can begin to compare with all the Hiroshimas, Dresdens, and Lidices and their analogues through the history of mankind.
This point can be made more philosophically: it is illegitimate to compare the merits of anarchism and statism by starting with the present system as the implicit given and then critically examining only the anarchist alternative. What we must do is to begin at the zero point and then critically examine both suggested alternatives. Suppose, for example, that we were all suddenly dropped down on the earth de novo and that we were all then confronted with the question of what societal arrangements to adopt. And suppose then that someone suggested: “We are all bound to suffer from those of us who wish to aggress against their fellow men. Let us then solve this problem of crime by handing all of our weapons to the Jones family, over there, by giving all of our ultimate power to settle disputes to that family. In that way, with their monopoly of coercion and of ultimate decision making, the Jones family will be able to protect each of us from each other.” I submit that this proposal would get very short shrift, except perhaps from the Jones family themselves. And yet this is precisely the common argument for the existence of the state. When we start from the zero point, as in the case of the Jones family, the question of “who will guard the guardians?” becomes not simply an abiding lacuna in the theory of the state but an overwhelming barrier to its existence.
A final caveat: the anarchist is always at a disadvantage in attempting to forecast the shape of the future anarchist society. For it is impossible for observers to predict voluntary social arrangements, including the provision of goods and services, on the free market. Suppose, for example, that this were the year 1874 and that someone predicted that eventually there would be a radio-manufacturing industry. To be able to make such a forecast successfully, does he have to be challenged to state immediately how many radio manufacturers there would be a century hence, how big they would be, where they would be located, what technology and marketing techniques they would use, and so on? Obviously, such a challenge would make no sense, and in a profound sense the same is true of those who demand a precise portrayal of the pattern of protection activities on the market. Anarchism advocates the dissolution of the state into social and market arrangements, and these arrangements are far more flexible and less predictable than political institutions. The most that we can do, then, is to offer broad guidelines and perspectives on the shape of a projected anarchist society.
One important point to make here is that the advance of modern technology makes anarchistic arrangements increasingly feasible. Take, for example, the case of lighthouses, where it is often charged that it is unfeasible for private lighthouse operators to row out to each ship to charge it for use of the light. Apart from the fact that this argument ignores the successful existence of private lighthouses in earlier days, as in England in the eighteenth century, another vital consideration is that modern electronic technology makes charging each ship for the light far more feasible. Thus, the ship would have to have paid for an electronically controlled beam which could then be automatically turned on for those ships which had paid for the service.
Let us turn now to the problem of how disputes — in particular disputes over alleged violations of person and property — would be resolved in an anarchist society. First, it should be noted that all disputes involve two parties: the plaintiff, the alleged victim of the crime or tort and the defendant, the alleged aggressor. In many cases of broken contract, of course, each of the two parties alleging that the other is the culprit is at the same time a plaintiff and a defendant.
An important point to remember is that any society, be it statist or anarchist, has to have some way of resolving disputes that will gain a majority consensus in society. There would be no need for courts or arbitrators if everyone were omniscient and knew instantaneously which persons were guilty of any given crime or violation of contract. Since none of us is omniscient, there has to be some method of deciding who is the criminal or lawbreaker which will gain legitimacy; in short, whose decision will be accepted by the great majority of the public.
In the first place, a dispute may be resolved voluntarily between the two parties themselves, either unaided or with the help of a third mediator. This poses no problem, and will automatically be accepted by society at large. It is so accepted even now, much less in a society imbued with the anarchistic values of peaceful cooperation and agreement. Secondly and similarly, the two parties, unable to reach agreement, may decide to submit voluntarily to the decision of an arbitrator. This agreement may arise either after a dispute has arisen, or be provided for in advance in the original contract. Again, there is no problem in such an arrangement gaining legitimacy. Even in the present statist era, the notorious inefficiency and coercive and cumbersome procedures of the politically run government courts has led increasing numbers of citizens to turn to voluntary and expert arbitration for a speedy and harmonious settling of disputes.
Thus, William C. Wooldridge has written that
Wooldridge adds the important point that, in addition to the speed of arbitration procedures vis-à-vis the courts, the arbitrators can proceed as experts in disregard of the official government law; in a profound sense, then, they serve to create a voluntary body of private law. “In other words,” states Wooldridge, “the system of extralegal, voluntary courts has progressed hand in hand with a body of private law; the rules of the state are circumvented by the same process that circumvents the forums established for the settlement of disputes over those rules…. In short, a private agreement between two people, a bilateral “law,” has supplanted the official law. The writ of the sovereign has cease to run, and for it is substituted a rule tacitly or explicitly agreed to by the parties. Wooldridge concludes that “if an arbitrator can choose to ignore a penal damage rule or the statute of limitations applicable to the claim before him (and it is generally conceded that he has that power), arbitration can be viewed as a practically revolutionary instrument for self-liberation from the law….”2
It may be objected that arbitration only works successfully because the courts enforce the award of the arbitrator. Wooldridge points out, however, that arbitration was unenforceable in the American courts before 1920, but that this did not prevent voluntary arbitration from being successful and expanding in the United States and in England. He points, furthermore, to the successful operations of merchant courts since the Middle Ages, those courts which successfully developed the entire body of the law merchant. None of those courts possessed the power of enforcement. He might have added the private courts of shippers which developed the body of admiralty law in a similar way.
How then did these private, “anarchistic,” and voluntary courts ensure the acceptance of their decisions? By the method of social ostracism, and by the refusal to deal any further with the offending merchant. This method of voluntary “enforcement,” indeed proved highly successful. Wooldridge writes that “the merchants’ courts were voluntary, and if a man ignored their judgment, he could not be sent to jail…. Nevertheless, it is apparent that … [their] decisions were generally respected even by the losers; otherwise people would never have used them in the first place…. Merchants made their courts work simply by agreeing to abide by the results. The merchant who broke the understanding would not be sent to jail, to be sure, but neither would he long continue to be a merchant, for the compliance exacted by his fellows … proved if anything more effective than physical coercion.”3 Nor did this voluntary method fail to work in modern times. Wooldridge writes that it was precisely in the years before 1920, when arbitration awards could not be enforced in the courts,
It should also be pointed out that modern technology makes even more feasible the collection and dissemination of information about people’s credit ratings and records of keeping or violating their contracts or arbitration agreements. Presumably, an anarchist society would see the expansion of this sort of dissemination of data and thereby facilitate the ostracism or boycotting of contract and arbitration violators.
How would arbitrators be selected in an anarchist society? In the same way as they are chosen now, and as they were chosen in the days of strictly voluntary arbitration: the arbitrators with the best reputation for efficiency and probity would be chosen by the various parties on the market. As in other processes of the market, the arbitrators with the best record in settling disputes will come to gain an increasing amount of business, and those with poor records will no longer enjoy clients and will have to shift to another line of endeavor. Here it must be emphasized that parties in dispute will seek out those arbitrators with the best reputation for both expertise and impartiality and that inefficient or biased arbitrators will rapidly have to find another occupation.
Thus, the Tannehills emphasize:
If desired, furthermore, the contracting parties could provide in advance for a series of arbitrators:
Arbitration, then, poses little difficulty for a portrayal of the free society. But what of torts or crimes of aggression where there has been no contract? Or suppose that the breaker of a contract defies the arbitration award? Is ostracism enough? In short, how can courts develop in the free-market anarchist society which will have the power to enforce judgments against criminals or contract breakers?
In the wide sense, defense service consists of guards or police who use force in defending person and property against attack, and judges or courts whose role is to use socially accepted procedures to determine who the criminals or tortfeasors are, as well as to enforce judicial awards, such as damages or the keeping of contracts. On the free market, many scenarios are possible on the relationship between the private courts and the police; they may be “vertically integrated,” for example, or their services may be supplied by separate firms. Furthermore, it seems likely that police service will be supplied by insurance companies who will provide crime insurance to their clients. In that case, insurance companies will pay off the victims of crime or the breaking of contracts or arbitration awards and then pursue the aggressors in court to recoup their losses. There is a natural market connection between insurance companies and defense service, since they need pay out less benefits in proportion as they are able to keep down the rate of crime.
Courts might either charge fees for their services, with the losers of cases obliged to pay court costs, or else they may subsist on monthly or yearly premiums by their clients, who may be either individuals or the police or insurance agencies. Suppose, for example, that Smith is an aggrieved party, either because he has been assaulted or robbed, or because an arbitration award in his favor has not been honored. Smith believes that Jones is the party guilty of the crime. Smith then goes to a court, Court A, of which he is a client, and brings charges against Jones as a defendant. In my view, the hallmark of an anarchist society is one where no man may legally compel someone who is not a convicted criminal to do anything, since that would be aggression against an innocent man’s person or property. Therefore, Court A can only invite rather than subpoena Jones to attend his trial. Of course, if Jones refused to appear or send a representative, his side of the case will not be heard. The trial of Jones proceeds. Suppose that Court A finds Jones innocent. In my view, part of the generally accepted law code of the anarchist society (on which see further below) is that this must end the matter unless Smith can prove charges of gross incompetence or bias on the part of the court.
Suppose, next, that Court A finds Jones guilty. Jones might accept the verdict, because he too is a client of the same court, because he knows he is guilty, or for some other reason. In that case, Court A proceeds to exercise judgment against Jones. Neither of these instances poses very difficult problems for our picture of the anarchist society. But suppose, instead, that Jones contests the decision; he then goes to his court, Court B, and the case is retried there. Suppose that Court B, too, finds Jones guilty. Again, it seems to me that the accepted law code of the anarchist society will assert that this ends the matter; both parties have had their say in courts which each has selected, and the decision for guilt is unanimous.
Suppose, however, the most difficult case: that Court B finds Jones innocent. The two courts, each subscribed to by one of the two parties, have split their verdicts. In that case, the two courts will submit the case to an appeals court, or arbitrator, which the two courts agree upon. There seems to be no real difficulty about the concept of an appeals court. As in the case of arbitration contracts, it seems very likely that the various private courts in the society will have prior agreements to submit their disputes to a particular appeals court. How will the appeals judges be chosen? Again, as in the case of arbitrators or of the first judges on the free market, they will be chosen for their expertise and their reputation for efficiency, honesty, and integrity. Obviously, appeals judges who are inefficient or biased will scarcely be chosen by courts who will have a dispute. The point here is that there is no need for a legally established or institutionalized single, monopoly appeals court system, as states now provide. There is no reason why there cannot arise a multitude of efficient and honest appeals judges who will be selected by the disputant courts, just as there are numerous private arbitrators on the market today. The appeals court renders its decision, and the courts proceed to enforce it if, in our example, Jones is considered guilty — unless, of course, Jones can prove bias in some other court proceedings.
No society can have unlimited judicial appeals, for in that case there would be no point to having judges or courts at all. Therefore, every society, whether statist or anarchist, will have to have some socially accepted cutoff point for trials and appeals. My suggestion is the rule that the agreement of any two courts, be decisive. “Two” is not an arbitrary figure, for it reflects the fact that there are two parties, the plaintiff and the defendant, to any alleged crime or contract dispute.
If the courts are to be empowered to enforce decision against guilty parties, does this not bring back the state in another form and thereby negate anarchism? No, for at the beginning of this paper I explicitly defined anarchism in such a way as not to rule out the use of defensive force — force in defense of person and property — by privately supported agencies. In the same way, it is not bringing back the state to allow persons to use force to defend themselves against aggression, or to hire guards or police agencies to defend them.
It should be noted, however, that in the anarchist society there will be no “district attorney” to press charges on behalf of “society.” Only the victims will press charges as the plaintiffs. If, then, these victims should happen to be absolute pacifists who are opposed even to defensive force, then they will simply not press charges in the courts or otherwise retaliate against those who have aggressed against them. In a free society that would be their right. If the victim should suffer from murder, then his heir would have the right to press the charges.
What of the Hatfield-and-McCoy problem? Suppose that a Hatfield kills a McCoy, and that McCoy’s heir does not belong to a private insurance, police agency, or court, and decides to retaliate himself? Since under anarchism there can be no coercion of the noncriminal, McCoy would have the perfect right to do so. No one may be compelled to bring his case to a court. Indeed, since the right to hire police or courts flows from the right of self-defense against aggression, it would be inconsistent and in contradiction to the very basis of the free society to institute such compulsion.
Suppose, then, that the surviving McCoy finds what he believes to be the guilty Hatfield and kills him in turn? What then? This is fine, except that McCoy may have to worry about charges being brought against him by a surviving Hatfield. Here it must be emphasized that in the law of the anarchist society based on defense against aggression, the courts would not be able to proceed against McCoy if in fact he killed the right Hatfield. His problem would arise if the courts should find that he made a grievous mistake and killed the wrong man; in that case, he in turn would be found guilty of murder. Surely, in most instances, individuals will wish to obviate such problems by taking their case to a court and thereby gain social acceptability for their defensive retaliation — not for the act of retaliation but for the correctness of deciding who the criminal in any given case might be. The purpose of the judicial process, indeed, is to find a way of general agreement on who might be the criminal or contract breaker in any given case. The judicial process is not a good in itself; thus, in the case of an assassination, such as Jack Ruby’s murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, on public television, there is no need for a complex judicial process, since the name of the murderer is evident to all.
Will not the possibility exist of a private court that may turn venal and dishonest, or of a private police force that turns criminal and extorts money by coercion? Of course such an event may occur, given the propensities of human nature. Anarchism is not a moral cure-all. But the important point is that market forces exist to place severe checks on such possibilities, especially in contrast to a society where a state exists. For, in the first place, judges, like arbitrators, will prosper on the market in proportion to their reputation for efficiency and impartiality. Secondly, on the free market important checks and balances exist against venal courts or criminal police forces. Namely, that there are competing courts and police agencies to whom victims may turn for redress. If the “Prudential Police Agency” should turn outlaw and extract revenue from victims by coercion, the latter would have the option of turning to the “Mutual” or “Equitable” Police Agency for defense and for pressing charges against Prudential. These are the genuine “checks and balances” of the free market, genuine in contrast to the phony check and balances of a state system, where all the alleged “balancing” agencies are in the hands of one monopoly government. Indeed, given the monopoly “protection service” of a state, what is there to prevent a state from using its monopoly channels of coercion to extort money from the public? What are the checks and limits of the state? None, except for the extremely difficult course of revolution against a power with all of the guns in its hands. In fact, the state provides an easy, legitimated channel for crime and aggression, since it has its very being in the crime of tax theft, and the coerced monopoly of “protection.” It is the state, indeed, that functions as a mighty “protection racket” on a giant and massive scale. It is the state that says: “Pay us for your ‘protection’ or else.” In the light of the massive and inherent activities of the state, the danger of a “protection racket” emerging from one or more private police agencies is relatively small indeed.
Moreover, it must be emphasized that a crucial element in the power of the state is its legitimacy in the eyes of the majority of the public, the fact that after centuries of propaganda, the depredations of the state are looked upon rather as benevolent services. Taxation is generally not seen as theft, nor war as mass murder, nor conscription as slavery. Should a private police agency turn outlaw, should “Prudential” become a protection racket, it would then lack the social legitimacy which the state has managed to accrue to itself over the centuries. “Prudential” would be seen by all as bandits, rather than as legitimate or divinely appointed “sovereigns” bent on promoting the “common good” or the “general welfare.” And lacking such legitimacy, “Prudential” would have to face the wrath of the public and the defense and retaliation of the other private defense agencies, the police and courts, on the free market. Given these inherent checks and limits, a successful transformation from a free society to bandit rule becomes most unlikely. Indeed, historically, it has been very difficult for a state to arise to supplant a stateless society; usually, it has come about through external conquest rather than by evolution from within a society.
Within the anarchist camp, there has been much dispute on whether the private courts would have to be bound by a basic, common law code. Ingenious attempts have been made to work out a system where the laws or standards of decision-making by the courts would differ completely from one to another.7 But in my view all would have to abide by the basic law code, in particular, prohibition of aggression against person and property, in order to fulfill our definition of anarchism as a system which provides no legal sanction for such aggression. Suppose, for example, that one group of people in society holds that all redheads are demons who deserve to be shot on sight. Suppose that Jones, one of this group, shoots Smith, a redhead. Suppose that Smith or his heir presses charges in a court, but that Jones’s court, in philosophic agreement with Jones, finds him innocent therefore. It seems to me that in order to be considered legitimate, any court would have to follow the basic libertarian law code of the inviolate right of person and property. For otherwise, courts might legally subscribe to a code which sanctions such aggression in various cases, and which to that extent would violate the definition of anarchism and introduce, if not the state, then a strong element of statishness or legalized aggression into the society.
But again I see no insuperable difficulties here. For in that case, anarchists, in agitating for their creed, will simply include in their agitation the idea of a general libertarian law code as part and parcel of the anarchist creed of abolition of legalized aggression against person or property in the society.
In contrast to the general law code, other aspects of court decisions could legitimately vary in accordance with the market or the wishes of the clients; for example, the language the cases will be conducted in, the number of judges to be involved, and so on.
There are other problems of the basic law code which there is no time to go into here: for example, the definition of just property titles or the question of legitimate punishment of convicted offenders — though the latter problem of course exists in statist legal systems as well.8 The basic point, however, is that the state is not needed to arrive at legal principles or their elaboration: indeed, much of the common law, the law merchant, admiralty law, and private law in general, grew up apart from the state, by judges not making the law but finding it on the basis of agreed-upon principles derived either from custom or reason.9 The idea that the state is needed to make law is as much a myth as that the state is needed to supply postal or police services.
Enough has been said here, I believe, to indicate that an anarchist system for settling disputes would be both viable and self-subsistent: that once adopted, it could work and continue indefinitely. How to arrive at that system is of course a very different problem, but certainly at the very least it will not likely come about unless people are convinced of its workability, are convinced, in short, that the state is not a necessary evil.

[Murray Rothbard delivered this talk 32 years ago today at the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy (ASPLP), Washington, DC: December 28, 1974. It was first published in The Libertarian Forum, volume 7.1, January 1975, available in PDF and ePub.]
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2024.05.14 06:23 Cute-Comfort5253 Honesty and Integeitt

I'm both a buyer and a seller on whatnot. I buy coins, and sell cards in the mtg categories. I tuned into a stream on the coins category yesterday and saw no less than five streamers whining about getting docked by trust and safety... Their main complaints? Giveaways. They didn't follow the rules, and got caught. Now they're on the naughty list and felt the need to bitch and moan while their mods and other shady streams played their sad violin music in the background.
"I can't make any money"- stop trying to resell the crap you buy at retail for a profit. It's bad business, and it isn't going to happen often. It doesn't matter what the big streamers sell something for, you aren't them. They bought alot of their stuff years ago when silver and gold were much lower or simply pick up huge lots for discounts. Now, they can sell it for a profit. Buy low, sell high. Sometimes you have to sit on a product for awhile. It's called supply and demand. Supply dips on premium items, demand goes up. High demand generates a higher premium. Buying something at full retail and expecting to make a profit is a fools errand.
"I GOT IN TROUBLE FOR SELLING NAZI SHIT" Then don't sell nazi shit. It's clearly stated in the rules. Cry me a river, build a bridge and get over it.
"Form-fillers suck" Yeah, nobody likes it when a non buyer gets a buyers giveaway. But nobody likes it when someone spends a dollar and wins it either. Suck it up, tag your buyers before the giveaway, and run it quickly. It takes time to fill out the form. Generate 20 buyers giveaways, and run one randomly. Easy. Plenty of other streamers have broken the code. Learn, adapt, survive. If a form filler gets it, send the item. If a "givvy goblin" wins the silver oz, send them the silver. It's a business expense and tax deductible. It increases your foot print, gets you followers, and the attention of potential buyers in the future. You got your money's worth talking about it all stream anyway. Like any marketing endeavor, it's not 100%. Most marketing campaigns are deemed huge successes with a 10% conversion rate.
"Whatnot fee's are crazy" Really? What's the cost of having a brick and mortar store? Credit card processing fees, rent, electricity, ect. It's not up to your customers to pay your 8% or 13%. That's called the cost of doing business. Besides I'm sure they're bitching and moaning about all the sellers on ebay and whatnot selling at greysheet. Be competitive, be honest, and have some integrity.
submitted by Cute-Comfort5253 to whatnotapp [link] [comments]


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2024.05.14 05:44 courtingdisaster Presenting the evidence: 17 May 2024

Presenting the evidence: 17 May 2024
Come one, come all, we're clooowning again! 🤡
Thanks to u/1DMod for posting the Jimmy Fallon video that led to me to start to connect the dots that other creators have noticed. Long story short, we're clowning for Stockholm N1 (maybe even night ✌️ as well), buckle up clowns!

✌️

First things first, May 17 is ✌️ fortnights after the release of TTPD on April 19. We know that Taylor is still throwing up peace signs which seems unnecessary if it only ever meant that there was a second part of TTPD. I think it's an indication that we haven't completely cracked that egg yet.
This photo was necessary for the post, ok

National/International Day Of

While these days aren't necessarily solid proof of anything, Taylor did release TTPD on Poetry & The Creative Mind Day and also released the ME! music video (ME! Out now!) on Lesbian Visibility Day so I think it's definitely worth investigating.
Let's have a look at the holidays for May 17 that could be relevant:
  • Endangered Species Day - anyone remember the ✌️ trips to the zoo while in Sydney...? We also have the big cat imagery on her new 1989 outfit to consider. If you haven't read this incredible post by u/Funny-Barnacle1291, I'd urge you to stop clowning with me (just for a moment) and go and read it. Taylor's TikTok bio still reads, "this is pretty much just a cat account" which could be a surface level meaning of her posting videos of her cats, but we know miss Feline Enthusiast herself loves a layered meaning. She also compared herself to feeling, "a lot like being a tiger in a wildlife enclosure" in the Lover diaries she released (pictured below).
TNT at Sydney Zoo Paris N4 TikTok bio Lover diaries comparing herself to a tiger Sydney Zoo
  • National Pizza Party Day - I know I am personally still haunted by her Stephen Colbert interview on 13 April 2021. The interview starts with Colbert talking about Taylor's Versions and also talking about how he believes the song "Hey Stephen" is about him. What surprise song did we get on guitar Paris N3..? Important to note that this interview also talks about him "waiting tables on the lunch shift at Scoozi, an Italian restaurant in the River North area of Chicago, that, by the way, serves a really incredible slice of pizza." Taylor also goes on to say that the song is actually about Stephen King and Taylor then says "The Dark Tower series changed my life, plus The Shining, The Stand and don't even get me started on his short stories... Absolutely luminescent." This interview is obviously very strange and likely filled with easter eggs. We know that her mention of the River North area of Chicago was also the location of one of the TTPD murals that went up ahead of release.
No... This is pizza
ME! Out soon 😉
  • National Graduation Tassel Day - Taylor was awarded with an honorary doctorate at NYU in 2022. We know that her speech at this event was filled with “Midnights” easter eggs including lyrics to “Labyrinth” and “You're On Your Own, Kid”. I wonder what other easter eggs are hidden in this speech...? Here's a link to the video and you can also read the full transcript here. I'm not going to do any further digging into this one right now, just presenting it as evidence but please feel free to note anything of importance in the comments.
Dr Taylor Alison Swift
These chemicals hit me like whiiiiite wiiiiine

Direct 17/5 easter eggs

  • Tokyo N3 - One of the surprise songs during Tokyo N3 was "The Outside". This excellent video by Kristen (underthepink7 - go follow her, she's amazing) goes into some additional easter eggs that I'm not going to go into here but definitely worth a watch (which also connects to "Down Bad"). What I do want to talk about though is what Taylor said when she introduced the song. Here's a video of the performance including her speech beforehand where she says, "this song is 175 years old." At the time most people thought that it was an egg for number of days leading us to 2 August 2024. It could still be referring to this however I'm starting to believe it's related to the date.
  • Date format - Before we go any further, it's important to note that the date format in Europe (where the Eras Tour currently is) goes DD/MM/YY. This is why I think the 175 could be a date as that equates to May 17 in Europe.
  • Tokyo N4 - On 10 February 2024, the surprise songs in Tokyo were "Come In With The Rain" (track 17) and "You're On Your Own, Kid" (track 5), another 175 and in this case it's specifically 17/5.
  • Anti Hero music video - There's been some really interesting analysis that I've seen on Twitter where the timestamps in Taylor's recent music videos appear to be lining up with the date of things happening in real life. Underthepink7 and Kiturakk on Twitter have pointed out some interesting connections to the numbers 175 in the Anti Hero, Bejeweled and Willow music videos. I'll admit this could be considered a bit of a stretch but what if I told you none of it was accidental...
Is Taylor using timestamps in her self-directed music videos to refer to dates in real life?

Important days in history

These could be nothing, could be something, still worth noting.
Important events in history that may be important to Taylor

Important events in Taylor's history on this day

  • "Bad Blood" music video premiered at the Billboard Awards
  • Entertainment Weekly where Taylor is on the cover with a rainbow pin and gravestone that says "I tried" is published
  • City of Lover concert (i.e. Taylor's Lover concert performed in Paris) airs on ABC for the first time
I think we're about to recreate her sparkling summer

Stockholm

  • 88th show - Taylor made a point to let everyone know that Paris N4 was the 87th show of the tour. Yes 87 is Travis' number but what if it was also to let everyone know that Stockholm will feature both her 88th and 89th shows? Obviously 89 is an important number to her however last year we saw Taylor embracing double dates (5/5 Speak Now TV announcement, 7/7 Speak Now TV release - there's probably others, that's all I remember off the top of my head) so I don't think it's a stretch to say that the 88th show would hold significance to her. I saw this thread on Twitter yesterday regarding "portal dates" and while obviously this is referring to dates, I can see "portal shows" being potentially noteworthy. Following on from this, Kristen has highlighted some Taylor Nation tweets that include the words "17" or "May" with one of those tweets being posted on 8/8 (while quoting "Betty" of all songs...) which Kristen notes is the karmic number representing resurrection and regeneration (tweets pictured below).
Deep portal, time travel
Is Karma boutta pop-up unannounced...?
  • Beyoncé - The Renaissance World Tour kicked off on 10 May 2023 in Stockholm at the very same stadium that Taylor is performing in next weekend. To me it would make sense to start a tour named Renaissance in Italy, where the Renaissance originated not in Sweden... We've seen Taylor and Beyoncé supporting each other a lot in the last year and Beyoncé's producer recently said, "let's just say she's on the approach of shocking the world." We know she's on her own three-act journey at the moment (complete with queer-flagging in her shows and her own Biyoncé rumours) so I don't think this quote is directly related to Cowboy Carter but potentially regarding the culmination of her arc. Is it possible that her arc lines up with Taylor's creating a supernova that will change the industry forever?
Taylor & Bey supporting each other at their respective film premieres, a literal pride flag on the Renaissance Tour (it's actually just Chiefs colours, phew!)
  • Taylor recorded songs in Stockholm - Kristen notes that many of Taylor's important singles were recorded in Stockholm including "I Knew You Were Trouble", "Shake It Off", "Blank Space", "Bad Blood", "Ready For It" and "New Romantics". Perhaps this city holds a special place in her heart?
  • One Direction - paging u/1DMod to go into more detail here however noting that One Direction has a song called "Stockholm Syndrome" and the lyrics are very interesting indeed ("I used the light to guide me home"). Checkout this recent post by u/1DMod regarding the possible Larry connections to TTPD.
  • Friends Arena - The stadium in Stockholm is called the Friends Arena. Taylor had a Friends pin on her jacket on the Entertainment Weekly cover. Was this stadium always supposed to play an important role? Kristen also notes that the opening ceremony took place on 27 October 2012 (obviously 27 October is the day that 1989 was released, both times) and

New Romantics

Kristen, who I have referenced in nearly every part in this post (again, she's amazing, go follow her), has a mass coming-out theory that she has dubbed the New Romantics. I highly recommend checking out her content on Twitter and TikTok and she's also recently launched a podcast that you can read more about here for a lottttttt more information on this theory. Essentially the theory is that a large number of artists in the entertainment industry are queer and are working together as a "safety in numbers" type approach to coming out of the closet and potentially changing the industry in a monumental way.
Let's have a look at some players that are relevant to either 17 May or Stockholm (or both in one person's case!):
  • Zayn - This is the person who is relevant to both 17 May and Stockholm! Obviously he was part of One Direction who I spoke about above as having a song titled "Stockholm Syndrome". Did you know his new album "The Closet" "The Room Under The Stairs" is being released this Friday, May 17? Again, I'll leave this to u/1DMod any additional relevant information as this is not my area of expertise but from what I understand, all members have their own queer rumours.
  • Billie Eilish - Recently out as a girl kisser, Billie Eilish is also releasing an album on this day titled "Hit Me Hard and Soft" featuring a song called "Lunch" that would leave even the most homophobic Swiftie unable to defend her queerness if released by Taylor.
  • Madison Beer - Madison is out as bi. Her tour, The Spinnin Tour, began 24 February 2024 in Stockholm (a different venue though).

Theories as to what exactly is coming

  • TTPD: Part 3 - I recently made a post presenting the evidence on a potential third part to TTPD. In this post the majority of the evidence was just related to the "3s" that have been prevalent lately however there were also some "5s" which led us to believe something was happening 5/3. I've since had a couple of thoughts that maybe the "3/5" is related to her 35th birthday this year. I strongly believe she'll be out by her birthday at the latest if not ON her birthday, but I digress.
  • Karma - After the fiery (Chiefs) colours we saw displayed in Paris, I'm not sure how you could be a Karma-denier at this point to be honest! If you haven't already, check out this amazing post from yesterday by (Dr Bryanlicious2 homewrecker) u/clydelogan. Their post discuses the numerology surrounding the number 8 that I referred to earlier however could this all be pointing us to the 88th show instead of a particular date...? Also if you are somehow still a Karma-denier, I recommend reading this collobarative post that is constantly being added to if you don't know what Karma is.
Karma is REAL
  • Coming Out - I personally don't believe she would come out during a show in Stockholm, however it's worth at least noting as a possibility. It would mean that she was "out" before Pride Month 😉 She did just sing "Begin Again" as a surprise song in Paris N4 - is she beginning again as her authentic self at the very next show?
  • Book - The creator of the video that u/1DMod initially posted believes that Taylor is announcing a book on 17 May 2024 with it to be released on 21 October 2024. I'm not going to go into this theory in detail however if you are interested in finding out more about what they have to say, here are a couple of videos of theirs (video 1, video 2, video 3).
Is this another easter egg that she laid 3 years ago?

In Summation

Something is happening in Stockholm.
I don't know what exactly but it is THE ONE to watch. I'll be there talking smack in the megathread and keeping an eye out for any new Chiefs colours.
See you there, clowns! Who's clowning with me?! 🤡🤡🤡
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2024.05.14 05:30 CosmicGunman ANALYSIS of Four Corners: Ruthless Pursuit (2024) The Chinese Secret Police in Australia Saga

ANALYSIS of Four Corners: Ruthless Pursuit (2024) The Chinese Secret Police in Australia Saga
Following up from my last post
From the Article, quoting below
Last month, Safeguard Defenders released a report documenting more than 280 cases of foreign citizens and residents being repatriated to China. The individuals are accused of committing economic crimes.
There were at least 16 successful individual extrajudicial returns from Australia between 2014 and 2023, according to the report, which relied on Chinese state media. Four of those returns took place last year.
"These successful operations — or even the attempts at operations that turn out not to be successful — are a clear violation of Australia's sovereignty," Ms Harth said.
I watched the full Four-Corners episode.
The phenomenon is real, however is the usual kernal of truth being framed as PRC evil subversion. The 1st Bureau cooperated with Australia at first, only for Australian Federal Police to get upset when one of the financial criminals were extradited to China which circumnavigated an agreed-upon process. The interviewees from the Australian side in the clip (including lawyer) said they cannot assume every single target was just innocently targeted, but the primary issue (correctly) is abusing sovereignty. Famously some things intelligence apparatuses never do /s. Genuinely there would be greater trust if relations were not Cold War coded.
The reporter is Echo Hui and some of her professional background as a journalist
Some things to note:
The former agent who speaks out (called Erik) was originally a member of (by the own reporter's admission) "was a member of a u.s-based pro-democracy organisation" known as the China Social Democratic Party (CSDP). He was one day called for questioning by the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) First (1st) Bureau: Political Security Protection Bureau (PSPB). He was questioned about the organisation and given an "opportunity for redemption" (left ambiguous, were there charges?), and offered to become an agent for the MPS's 1st Bureau, to becoming an informant on his former u.s-backed organisation). All of this comes from the mouth of Erik and Echo narrating. Unlike later in the episode; where we (eventually, after sufficent fear-mongering) get the China side.
On that note: The glossed-over "financial crimes" are significant. One of the "dissidents" was Edwin Yin. He was charged with Fraud in China, and Australian Courts ordered him to pay 700,000 AUD (3,345,451.83 CNY) due to "an alleged foreign exchange scam" Four-Corners talked to alleged victims which confirm yes Edwin Yin had scammed them and others. Edwin claims he is being framed by the CPC. In the clips he was also obsessed with Xi Jinping's illegitimate sons? And harassing his daughter online?
Now another of the "dissidents" is a "Everyday Chinese Marketing Guru". Wang Liming, AKA: Remon Wang, Pseudonym: Rebel Pepper (originally "Abnormal/Perverse Pepper.".). Political satirist, and left China to Japan to continue his anti-government satire cartoons. In 2012 he depicts the CPC as an angler fish which has hyponitised a smaller fish, representing the people of China. Compares Xi to an Emperor, and compare's the death toll of Mao to Islamic State. In 2017 he joins Radio Free Asia (RFA), and is the sole contributor to the cartoons column. In 2018 he founds the Shanghai National Party, in New York. A national-conservative, secessionist movement. Organised and attended anti-china protests in the Queens alongside Falun Gong and Uygher-American Association. In 2018, the Shanghai National Party hosted a "Acceleration of Chinese Collapse" award ceremony in Times Square. 😐 During the Shanghai lockdowns in 2022, he claimed the quarantine methods were an attempt at genocide of the Shanghainese.
Gonna share a quote.
He tweeted the ultimate goal of the Shanghai independence movement was to destroy the concept of a unified China. He wrote: "We must not only fight against the Communist Party, but also win more Chinese people to abandon the shell of "China."
This is sourced from: https://www.rfi.fcn/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD/20180812-%E4%B8%8A%E6%B5%B7%E6%B0%91%E6%97%8F%E5%85%9A%E5%9C%A8%E7%BA%BD%E7%BA%A6%E6%88%90%E7%AB%8B-%E5%85%AC%E5%BC%80%E8%A6%81%E6%B1%82%E4%B8%8A%E6%B5%B7%E7%8B%AC%E7%AB%8B
English Translation of the Webpage:
The "Shanghai National Party" was established in New York to oppose communism and demand the independence of Shanghai
A party called the "Shanghai National Party" is believed to have been established in New York, the United States. The specific date of founding the party may be July 18, but it was only announced in the United States yesterday by Twitter. The party's demands are to oppose unification, require Shanghainese to govern Shanghai, and promote Western democratization across the board. According to sources, those who pushed for the establishment of the "Shanghai National Party" were dissidents. Apple Daily reported today that in addition to facing Xinjiang and Tibetan independence, the Chinese government is now crying out for "Shanghai independence." Recently, a number of dissidents established the "Shanghai National Party" in New York State, USA. Their main demands are: "Oppose unification, Shanghai people ruling Shanghai, and total Westernization."
According to the Chinese dissident cartoonist "Abnormal Chili Pepper" yesterday announced on Twitter the first founding meeting of the "Shanghai National Party" (referred to as the Shanghai Democratic Party), and introduced in a newspaper advertisement that the party was established on July 18 this year. And successfully registered in New York on the same day.
"Abnormal Chili Pepper" tweeted that the Shanghai Democratic Party was established to completely subvert the concept of China as a unified country. He also said that the path they took was bound to be more difficult than the traditional democratic movement. He wrote: "Anti-communism is the first step, and it is also necessary to eliminate the soil for the survival of the CCP: the false concept of China. Therefore, the independence movement is definitely not a shortcut. We must not only be enemies of the CCP, but also become the enemy of all people who think that they are Chinese. Among them are the enemies of the traditional democratic movement. The independence movement is very difficult. We must not only fight against communism, but also win more Chinese people to abandon the shell of "China."
Throughout all this. There is ominous music and a sense of omnipresent surveillance. Echo also interviews FBI agent and Canadian Intelligence Agent to get their counter-intelligence perspective on these matters. The FBI agent says it was initially positive that PRC authorities wanted to cooperate to catch criminals on overseas soil, followed by saying "but then they get a foothold" to target people. Meanwhile; Echo says Xi Jinping using anti-corruption as a cover to silence and kidnap dissidents. Then later she asks to the Erik the former agent:
"So you were effectively helping the secret police track down people who were innocent of any crime. Do you feel any guilt for your involvement?"
To which Erik responses with:
"I'm an idealist but I'm also a pragmatist. I'm aware of the outcome one might face in China if you refuse to work with the secret police."
The exposé ends with Erik saying:
"They [PRC] may deny this story. They may mobilise some agents on the ground or send people to Australia [to] take measures against me, possibly getting physical. It's even possible that some agents on the ground may attempt to kidnap me. When they deal with a target like me, they may have to be more patient, smart, wait for an appropriate time to act. I'm definitely safer in Australia than in China or South-East Asia. But my safety eventually is determined by the Australian Government."
"But to some extent, for all those who oppose the CCP and Xi Jinping, the day that we can truly feel safe is after the CCP falls, after China becomes more free and democratic. Only then can we be free and safe.
Credits roll.
Honorable mentions:
• While operating in Cambodia, Erik's cover was being employed with Prince Real Estate, under Prince Holding Group. He was using this to eventually pursue Rebel-Pepper. Echo introduces them near the end and they share a hearty and jolly video call as they're now both "dissidents" in Melbourne.
• While operating in the countryside, he larped as a anti-CCP milita (as in making videos) to get close to this other dissident, who agreed with him. Though this dissident fled to Canada, and died kayaking in a town in Canada. Erik's first reaction is that this was an extrajudicial killing, followed by saying there is no way to know for sure, since he was not personally involved in Canada operations.
• FBI agent claims Xi is using diaspora for political aims, while Echo says Xi's anti-corruption portfolio was a cover to gain more power and "dissent is not allowed".
submitted by CosmicGunman to TheDeprogram [link] [comments]


2024.05.14 05:16 ran-immed Neo Referral Code 2024 - $15 sign up bonus ($5 for Money Account and $10 for a Neo Credit Card)

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submitted by ran-immed to referralcodes [link] [comments]


2024.05.14 05:11 satvista Rogers employees involved in Fraud?

Looks like there is a customer information leak happening in Rogers . Almost a month ago Rogers sent a technician over to my home to switch my internet to Fiber. The technician worked for close to 4 hrs and at the end mentioned that Fiber has not been provisioned to my area and he has put back everything as they were earlier. As he did that for another hour or so there were some minor damages to my drywall in the basement. I ended with the same state of internet and with additional damages to my home. I raised this issue in a subsequent call to Rogers , opened a case and finally ended up speaking with a manager who called me few days later to apologize for the fiasco. Things were fine till then. A week passed I get a call from a guy with a 647 area code number who claimed to be a Rogers manager and wanted to set things straight further . This guy clearly mentions the date on which the technician arrived, the name of the Rogers manager who spoke with me earlier and also provides full details about my internet connection including the last 4 digits of my credit card on file with Rogers. He speaks with me for the next 30 mins or so asking me to restart the router as he has changed my connection settings and also requesting me to share additional card details as he wants to change my existing internet ordeaccount. He ended my making a transaction amounting to 2800 dollars on my card which turned out to be fraud. I reached to out to Rogers on this issue. I spoke to a manager who claimed to have understood the seriousness of this issue and raised a case with their fraud department. I was told someone from Fraud department would reach out to me within 24 hrs . A week passed and nothing happened and finally I noticed that they had suspended my account . I reached out again demanding answers , they immediately activated my account and mentioned that this ends here and they don’t see any issue on their end . When I questioned how the information that is only privy to me and Rogers was known to the person who called I got no answers. I was told repeatedly, by the person at their Validations/ Fraud department , that there is no proof there was leak at their end and this can’t be taken up any further . When I requested I need to speak with a manager or someone who can at least answer me properly or investigate this further I was told no. I had subsequently raised this issue with the Canadian Anti Fraud Centre and also planning to reach out to Consumer Alerts at CTV. My advice to anyone reading this is to be extra careful in your dealings with Rogers. While I cannot fault the company as a whole in this case there is definitely something fishy going on . Stay safe !
submitted by satvista to Rogers [link] [comments]


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submitted by daniel_dan078 to referralcodes [link] [comments]


2024.05.14 04:08 oasisallure BOA did not honor $200 new account bonus

I haven't been a BOA checking account customer for over 10 years. I got $200 bonus promo code when I login to credit card online banking last Oct. So I opened a personal checking, did salary direct deposit more than $2000.
Months passed, still not got $200 bonus.
chatted with chat agent, csr did not see promo code in my account(I can confirm I entered the code), then I called BOA CS, phone csr let me wait. Now another 2 months passed, still no $200 bonus
how can I do next?
submitted by oasisallure to BankOfAmerica [link] [comments]


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