Click to Enlarge

Praise be to the Flying Spaghetti Monster!  Glory to thy name!

I’m a panentheist, btw, not an atheist.

Click to Enlarge

I view vegans and vegetarians much the same way I view Christians and Mac fans.  I wouldn’t mind them at all if they weren’t so damned evangelical about it.  I was vegetarian for about three years, but I tried very hard not to be a vegetarian evangelist.

Check out Fat Head on Hulu while it’s still available.  It has a clear liberty perspective with an emphasis on personal choice and responsibility.  It’s two hours, but it flies by because it’s really entertaining.

Click to Enlarge

This comic is in memory of Andromeda (but often referred to as “Kitteh-baby” by myself). Andromeda is the inspiration for Anarkitty.  Andromeda disappeared mysteriously over a year ago but she will continue to inspire from wherever she is now.  She had the anarchist nature that all cats have, but despite that, she sure seemed to love her “so-called masters” a lot.  As many of you probably already guessed, it is also inspired by the Lysander Spooner quote which actually was “But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain – that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.”

Someone contributed $40 through the chip-in which is why there is a release again so soon, so I considered it comic sponsorship and offered a honorable mention and an ad spot.  They weren’t interested.  Instead they just gave some nice words of encouragement and gratitude.  I don’t post names without explicit permission because I also feel I should respect privacy, but thank you to everyone who contributed.

Click to Enlarge

Detective Accidentally Shoots Self in Thigh

You hear stories like these from time to time.  This one inspired today’s comic.  Cops are ordinary people.

Today’s comic comes with important news, good and bad.  I’ll start with a positive swing on it.

Fans now control the release schedule of Anarchy In Your Head!  That’s right.  That handy chip-in widget to the left of the comic (when it’s not being buggy as Hell) gives YOU the power to speed up the release of the next comic in the queue.

The bad news is this is the last “free” comic release, at least for the foreseeable future.

For a more detailed explanation, read this blog post.

Click to Enlarge

You may recall a post where I talked (in jest, mostly) about how we named the show. Tomorrow is our 2nd live episode of Prometheus Unchained, a radio show where Neal Conner and I talk about LGBT issues (lesbian, gay, bisexual, & transgender) from a liberty perspective.  I’m guilty of a mild breach of protocol by posting the cover art of the show as a comic, but otherwise it will get pushed down the page and possibly missed by new visitors.

You can listen live on the Liberty Radio Network between Noon and 2pm every Sunday or download any past episode for free for your computer or portable listening device from our website. RSS Feed is also now available. The website was just updated from what was essentially just a placeholder and the archive is now hosted on the new server which will be much more convenient. Download the first episode if you missed it.

I hope you’ll join us!

A note to those subscribed to the email list– the list is currently not functional which is why you didn’t get an email update about this post.  I apologize and I’ll be addressing this and other reliability issues of this site in the immediate future.

Click to Enlarge

In one of the most famous episodes of the original Star Trek series, The Trouble with Tribbles written by David Gerrold, much of the crew is convinced to buy these adorable little cooing furballs known as tribbles.  A crafty salesman manages to unload quite a few of these before the crew realizes that they reproduce faster than Mormon bunnies overdosing on Viagra.  Would he have managed to sell so many had the customers known they could make many more of their own by just over-feeding them a bit?

The trouble with selling tribbles is they just aren’t a scarce commodity.  It’s built into their nature.  The shifty Star Trek character wasn’t just selling tribbles.  Every tribble he sold was also a tribble factory!

Read More

Click to Enlarge

This comic was inspired by a controversy over the Shire Society Declaration.  The construction of the declaration was begun with a work by Libertarian author, L. Neil Smith.  Many changes were made after a lengthy discussion, but they remain quite similar according to a number of people.  I haven’t actually read the original work and I got turned off to the discussion for reasons described here.  I did ultimately find myself in enough agreement with the final product to sign it.

L. Neil Smith feels he has been plagiarized and has even mentioned that he CCed an email complaint to his lawyer, though I have yet to hear of any explicit threats of legal action.  This has resulted in a lengthy discussion of the notion of intellectual property and whether it’s a valid claim of property from a voluntaryist viewpoint.

One of the most eminently reasonable comments I’ve read about this controversy is from the Free Talk Live forum:

Even if you subscribe to the theory that L. Neil’s words and ideas are his even if you buy them from him, he still would not own the application of such, which is what the Shire Society did.

That would be like John Shaw writing a book on making flat screens or film editing and then claiming to own all the flat screens or films that readers may create in the future.

And in fact, it seems like he’d be really proud that someone was inspired enough to want to put his idea into motion in such a bold way.

My own views of intellectual property are a bit nuanced.  I definitely don’t believe anyone is entitled to damages or restitution because someone copied, not stole, your shit.  In that sense, I’m completely anti-IP.  On the other hand, I believe in the notion of IP in the sense that you can own an idea to the extent that you can “protect it” without violence.  You can either keep it secret or you can do a good enough job of branding it or at least date-stamping it so others will have difficulty claiming it as their own.  That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be able to make money off of copies but it might help you to counter that and make the money yourself in a peaceful manner.  I’m also a big fan of people expanding on ideas and making them better.  I think claims of damages for copying are unreasonable and they impede that creative process which many consumers stand to benefit from.  I’m also a big fan of reverse-engineering actual physical products and making your own versions of them, possibly improved or just at a lower price.  Patents are bullshit.  This is something else that consumers stand to benefit greatly from.

The work above is actually an original work by Davi Barker.  Sure, he constructed it with slightly modified pieces of my comics, but it’s an original work that I feel he deserves credit for creating.  My comics are instantly reproducible and therefore not at all scarce.  It’s my responsibility to figure out how to make money from such a product.  I do feel I deserve the common courtesy of being given credit for the building blocks of it, but that doesn’t imply damages or restitution of any sort, and he did give me credit.  He was able to construct his comic without doing any damage to me or my property whatsoever.  It seems absurd to claim “damages”.  Such a claim relies on the absurd notion that you are entitled to make money off your works.  In fact, because he did provide such an obvious credit to the building blocks of his work, his comic will most likely act as free promotion of my works!  Why should I complain about that?

Click to Enlarge

This pretty well describes my experience at The Porcupine Freedom Festival last year.  I don’t have the excuse of not knowing about the events though.  I had several I was looking forward to attending but I was having such a good time just hanging out and enjoying the nice camping experience with great people that I lost track 0f time and missed all or some of most of what I had planned to attend.  I was even late for an event I was supposed to speak at!  I felt so bad.  Sorry, Carla!  This year I will be careful not to have so much fun that I completely lose track of what day and what time it is.

Click to Enlarge