Author: Voluntary Japan

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The supposed “problems” with anarchism are problems already created and made a million times worse by the current, violent statist paradigm. 

Here’s a short conversation between A and B, about why freedom and self-ownership are all or nothing.

***

A: Hi, Bob. I see you like gun rights and the 2nd Amendment of the United States Constitution. 

B: Damn straight I do. 

A: May I ask why?

B: To defend against tyrannical governments, to protect my family, and to hunt. It is every man’s right to do so.

A: I agree. But why is it every man’s right? Because there are inalienable rights that come from God, or nature?

B: Yep, basically. Just having a title like “president” doesn’t mean you get to violate my body or property. 

A: I also agree with that. What about war?

B: What do you mean?

A: Well, sometimes one country’s military will attack another country, and people that have nothing to do with the conflict end up dead. 

B: Well, that is the nature of war. It’s too bad. But there are countries that are a threat, and they must be defended against, just like I have to defend my own private home. 

A: I understand that line of thinking, Bob, but what I am getting at is that the non-violent people in the country being attacked — as per your description of rights — have a right to defend their homes from invading American troops, wouldn’t you say?

B: Well, now. That’s a little different. 

A: Why? 

B: Well, countries function kind of like individual people, and we gotta take that into account. Sometimes the cause demands actions that cause lives to unfortunately be lost. 

A: Who decides which lives may justifiably be taken?

B: Look at terrorism. If we didn’t defend against these Muslim countries our country could be subject to attack. In that case, it’s sad, but there’s going to be collateral damage that results from our military justifiably defending its people. 

A: So if the cause is deemed just by a large or important enough group of people, some people on the other side of the conflict, that are non-violent but caught in the middle, can be justifiably killed?

B: War is hell. Sometimes it’s necessary in order to save more people, yes. 

A: So rights then are not inalienable, or from God, for each individual —but are instead dependent on arbitrary, political factors?

B: Well, you’re twisting my words a little. It’s like the borders thing. The left wants to let all kinds of immigrants in to burden our taxpayers. That’s not fair. In order to keep things basically peaceful for non-violent individuals here, there have to be strict controls. 

A: So if a man comes from Mexico to work on his cousin’s private property in the states, but doesn’t have the right papers, he shouldn’t be allowed in? 

B: Now I didn’t say that. There’s room for improvement. But there are also lots of evil people that come in illegally. 

A: For sure. Traffickers, drug cartels, rapists. There’s some evil shit that happens at the border. But I’m asking, if you were there at the border — you personally — would you use violence to stop that guy trying to work on his cousin’s farm from getting in?

B: Me? No. But I don’t make the laws. And we need some kind of system to keep us safe until we can privatize things and get rid of the state. Or at least shrink it down much more. 

A: So if that system is used against you, you won’t complain?

B: What do you mean?

A: Well there’s been plenty of travel prohibitions due to the whole “covid” thing. Especially in places like Canada. Let’s say interstate travel here in America started to require passports and PCR tests and vaccination certificates. Would you be okay with that?

B: Hell no! And that’s never going to happen. 

A: Well, the border already enforces this limitation on foreigners arriving — even legally — into the U.S. Canada does it to Canadians, even.

B: As I said. Nothing’s perfect. 

A: Would it be more accurate to say that instead of believing all non-violent humans have inalienable rights from God — such as those rights to their bodies and property — you believe that under some circumstances, dictated not by nature or God but by humans, humans can lose these rights?

B: Look, I’m not a utopian like you. And I didn’t say that. 

A: That’s fine. I’m just trying to understand the metric. Which humans get to decide when these God-given rights may be violently limited? What is the metric? It sounds totalitarian and arbitrary. If you personally say you don’t have the right to stop the Mexican farmer guy or to kill a non-violent stranger overseas, how can you outsource those rights you don’t even have, to a state?

B: Alright, enough of this. Keep dreaming little anarchist. Yes. I do care more about my safety and security and rights than those of strangers I don’t even know! And why shouldn’t I? We live in a real world, with real danger and real threats, that no flowery philosophy is gonna fix.

A: So then why do you talk about God-given rights?

Went out for a run today feeling very energized and happy, as the typhoon fever broke, and cool air returned to the archipelago. The autumnal equinox is just three days away, and I’m looking forward to what the season of bright-orange-flowered fragrant olive, changing leaves, cool air, hiking, and great mountain running has to bring.

Did 8 miles and felt good. Had an autumn-themed beer to celebrate at the end and took the train home. A great way to start the fall. Happy Autumn to all you Voluntaryists, Agorists, and freedom-loving folks out there. Keep singing your song.

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In this sense, the theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property.

-Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto

Check your premises.

-Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

FROM MARX TO MAGA: TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COMMIE COIN

Very few self-described conservatives of today would condemn free marketeers and individuals opposed to Communism in general, fleeing oppressive Communist governments, as happened with East Germany in the latter half of the 20th century. 

As noted on Wikipedia:

“Before the Wall’s erection, 3.5 million East Germans circumvented Eastern Bloc emigration restrictions and defected from the GDR, many by crossing over the border from East Berlin into West Berlin; from there they could then travel to West Germany and to other Western European countries.”

“Between 1961 and 1989, the Wall prevented almost all such emigration. During this period, over 100,000 people attempted to escape, and over 5,000 people succeeded in escaping over the Wall, with an estimated death toll ranging from 136 to more than 200 in and around Berlin.”

This was an illegal wall hop that any liberty-loving individual would support.

Now, if we look to Mexico, another example of violent state intervention resulting in folks fleeing toward economic freedom can be seen as a result of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement of 1994, engineered by George H.W. Bush, and launched during the Clinton presidency. Thanks to big government collusion, farmers’ livelihoods and small private enterprise were gutted in favor of big-gov-friendly outcomes, resulting in mass migration to the United States from Mexico.

It’s interesting that now the conservatives in MAGA hats often claim — like Karl Marx himself once noted — that immigration lowers the wages and quality of life of non-immigrants. Marxists and Trump-loving, so-called conservatives are in agreeance: the state should be very strong and forceful when it comes to central planning. This includes a strong, centrally planned force at the border of one’s nation-state. 

TRUE PRIVATE PROPERTY

True private property is determined by self-ownership. That is to say, I own myself, and thus any property I legitimately create or receive thereby. “Legitimately” meaning in non-violence of another’s body or legitimate property.

As Communist states have already shown time and time again, once individuals are denied property rights, chaos and death result. Ironically, voluntaryists support a universal property norm: self-ownership for all individuals, no special rights for politicians or “ruling classes” — something one might imagine a Communist could get behind at least in theory. 

As every sane person you know will admit, their body is indeed their own, and they probably wouldn’t let you take everything out of their house and eat everything in their fridge for free. It’s clear humans basically agree on some universal property norms. Especially the axiom of self-ownership. 

The tragedy of the commons that forced communism results in is typically opposed only so far, however, by so-called conservatives. When it comes to imaginary, non-private-property lines called “borders” (after all, the state claims these vast swathes of land called countries apropos of mere decree, without private individuals homesteading and mixing labor with the lands) these self-proclaimed conservatives turn their heads to ignore obvious draconian realities. What could be more of a Commie infringement than “eminent domain,” for example? As the National Immigration Forum notes:

“The federal government used eminent domain to acquire private property along the Southern border after President George W. Bush signed the Secure Fence Act (H.R. 6061) on October 26, 2006 … Following the bill’s enactment, the federal government contacted private landowners along the border and provided them with 30 days to decide whether to sell their land … over the following seven months, the government filed more than 360 eminent domain lawsuits against property owners who refused to sell their property, including 334 in South Texas. The targeted properties were mostly farms, but also included homes, golf courses and businesses.”

As Stephan Kinsella noted in the introduction to his 2006 essay How We Come to Own Ourselves:

“The primary social evil of our time is lack of respect for self-ownership rights. It is what underlies both private crime and institutionalized crime perpetrated by the state. State laws, regulations, and actions are objectionable just because the state is claiming the right to control how someone’s body [by way of their property] is to be used.”

If borders need to be strong to preserve freedom, what of the freedom they destroy?

FORCED INTEGRATION (OPEN BORDERS) AND FORCED DISASSOCIATION (CLOSED BORDERS) ARE LOGICALLY AND ETHICALLY UNTENABLE

When examined closely, it is clear there really is no essential difference between those championing big government with open borders, and those championing big government at the border.

It’s only a difference of where to apply the violence. America’s so-called conservatives want the violence to be done their way, and the so-called progressives want it done their own. It’s like two buffoons trying to fix a blown engine by hammering on it in different places. Buffoon A swears up and down you’ve got to smash it on the top, by the spark plugs, to magically make it work again, and Buffoon B swears that you’ve got to whack it on the side. Meanwhile, a passerby notes to the both of the idiots: “That engine is blown and will never work no matter how much you beat on it like that. You need a new engine.”

The recent Martha’s Vineyard political stunt is a good example of this. A red state governor claims he sent two plane-fulls of illegal immigrants to a wealthy, liberal community so they can deal with the problem. As is commonly said on Twitter: this isn’t the dunk you think it is, conservatives. Nor does it show the progressives in a positive light. The situation violates individuals on all sides in order to create a media spectacle, and shows statists across the spectrum to harbor intrinsically violent worldviews. 

There is indeed a massive problem caused by forced integration. The EU is struggling with crime, rape, human trafficking and all sorts of other issues. This is at least partially the result of impoverishing, destroying, and subjugating foreign lands decade after decade, and disarming the local populace so they cannot defend themselves or their property when the misplaced hate comes home to roost.

There is also a massive problem caused by forced disassociation. The man in the MAGA hat says he believes in small government and property rights, but supports a regime that will not allow a private property owner to hire who they please, or to return home to his country with his family without a questionable vaccination. 

None of this is to mention the countless families destroyed and children orphaned by the resultant violence. While the drug cartels (directly created by perverse state incentives —see the U.S. alcohol prohibition — same dynamic) and human traffickers run amok, the blame is placed not on those actual perpetrators of evil or the state, but on any and every self-owning individual who may cross that stupid Commie line in the dirt to try to find a better life, after the Commie central planners destroyed his or her life in their former home.

And this is all supported by folks who are supposed to be the most anti-Commie of all. Stronger borders. Sure. They’re being weaponized against you already, liberty man. As the Washington Post reports:

“Law enforcement agencies must show probable cause and persuade a judge to approve a search warrant before searching Americans’ phones. But courts have long granted an exception to border authorities, allowing them to search people’s devices without a warrant or suspicion of a crime.”

And it’s not just a power these agents have, but do not use. Around 10,000 devices a year are searched, and a database exists where “2,700 CBP officers can access the [information] without a warrant and without having to record the purpose of their search.”

It’s a myopic view for any freedom-loving individual to be either “pro-border” or “anti-border.” Borders by their very design must systematically violate individual freedom. The voluntaryist view that everything should be privatized down to the individual is definitely not the reality we are living now. Nobody is saying it is. We are simply saying that the engine is blown, and was never designed to protect you, or freedom, in the first place. 

As the ACLU notes:

“The Border Patrol and its parent agency, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), operate in a vast zone stretching 100 miles from any land or sea border. This includes entire states such as Florida and Maine as well as almost all of the country’s top metropolitan areas. CBP’s militarization of the border region has produced rampant abuses ranging from racial profiling to excessive force. CBP uses interior checkpoints and roving patrols located far from the border to apprehend individuals who are not recent border crossers.”

If you are a conservative and truly value freedom and property — and not just your own personal freedom and property, but also that of others — there is no logically or ethically tenable way to be “pro-closed border.” This position always requires systematic violation of the non-violent. Further, there is no ethical or logical way to be “pro-open border,” either, where a centralized, violent nation-state regulates this “open” border. This situation makes it illegal for individuals to disassociate, and forces them to pay for the burdens others put on their lives.

I do not want to pay for Gestapo-like forces at and beyond the so-called border, either way. Don’t force me to. That is Communism, flat out: the idea that I need to pay for something you want against my will, for “the greater good.” 

Those that want to force others to shelter immigrants, open your homes then, or shut up. Those that want to force non-violent immigrants to quit their jobs with a willing private employer, arm yourselves and go break up the families yourselves — or shut the fuck up. 

I question the debate’s premise itself, because the whole conflict is based on an anti-concept. It is framed as a debate about property, but “public” land is not property at all, as there are no exclusive use rights. The debate isn’t about open borders or closed borders, but Communism versus private property. Your debate is about which flavor of Commie boot you want to support.

And if my position seems apathetic, or results in — God forbid — me or my family getting harmed in some way or murdered by some border policy that’s implemented, who would be to blame? Me, or the perpetrator of the evil itself? When someone trafficks children, or brutally murders a family for drugs, or rapes someone, who is to blame: the family seeking a better life, or the traffickers and killers? 

If you don’t want freedom and property rights for the smallest minority — the individual — your opinions about freedom are essentially… meaningless. Your concern is survival and comfort. And that’s fine. But don’t pretend otherwise. Wear the hammer and sickle with pride, comrade. 

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John Lennon famously said: War is over, if you want it. People too thick to understand laughed and called him a utopian and a “dreamer,” which he readily acknowledged in song. A guy with pie-in-the-sky ideals, not fully in touch with reality. But actually, he was 100% correct.

Whatever you may think of Lennon as a person, it still stands: War is over, if we want it to be.

We’re not talking about wishing here, but direct action. And not even action in the positive sense, but simple non-participation. If you do not want war, refuse to fight in a war. Refuse to kill a total stranger overseas you personally have nothing against, and who, like you, thinks he is fighting for a just cause, being duped, like you, by politicians who will never put their own lives on the line.

Refuse to kill children.

Someone may say: “I cannot solve world hunger alone!”

Another: “There’s no way I can stop war by myself, are you insane!?”

Yet another: “The government, as evil as it is, is a reality. There’s nothing I can do to abolish it.”

But stop right there. Zoom in. If most individuals gave their neighbors a little food when they hit hard times, world hunger would be nearly eradicated instantaneously. If you don’t want to do that, how could you expect a government to? 

Imagine if the massive charities of the world actually addressed the root causes of poverty in tandem with these individual actions, instead of showing off for mainstream media and collecting awards at meaningless ceremonies made for celebrities to feel good about their “giving.”

Imagine if they spoke about the elephant in the room: The violent state monopolies creating the problem in the first place, by not allowing local economies and hard-working, innovative human beings to freely prosper.

Zoom in on the corrupt police of today. Enough individuals deciding not to join would end it all — instantly. What is a corrupt politician without his or her squad of rabid attack dogs at the ready? Nothing but a sniveling worm in a suit and tie, cowering powerless before a united-in-self-ownership, critical mass of independent thinkers and lovers of peace. 

Is it unrealistic to expect such a critical mass to form, once their minds have been jailbroken from the cult of the state? (Which is, by the way, why freeing people’s minds is the first order of business.) Maybe it is “unrealistic.” But even so, it is only impossible if no one does it. And it is nevertheless the just and moral course. 

It is, indeed, the only logical way. If you hate the status quo, as much as you possibly can and however you can, stop participating. Stop paying taxes to whatever degree possible. Stop voting. Stop lending the murder machine your support. Without you, and without me, this monster cannot exist. 

If you would like to learn more about how order can be (and already is) achieved without a violent centralized government or state, please click here.

I’ve gone to great pains over the years to refine my arguments for voluntaryism, testing myself to the brink of obsessive exhaustion, arguing against my own points and counterpoints in my head, talking to myself walking down the street, skipping sleep to understand something better — more thoroughly — reading, writing, debating, being wrong, being right, being baffled, and then coming back to reason it all out again.

I have nonetheless emerged seeing the recognition of self-ownership as the most practical, ethical, and logical way for humans to live in societies where violent conflict is minimized. It is empirically provable.

On the surface, nearly everyone says they desire such an outcome. Nearly everyone probably thinks they do. But I’m not so sure I believe them anymore. I’m starting to think they value something else much more than peace and goodwill to others, no matter how they may pretend or talk the talk of a sensible person.  

I saw a post today from the powerful mind of anarchist thinker, writer, and speaker Robert Higgs, which set me down a new path of questioning.

If the proposition in the passage below is true, it would certainly explain why, so very often, I get nowhere when it comes to logically and painstakingly explaining anarchism/voluntaryism to friends, loved ones, and strangers. To my extreme frustration, no matter how logically the case is made (or even in what tone), it is almost roundly rejected by folks of all cultural backgrounds, intelligence levels, and religious beliefs (or lack thereof). Before going further, here’s the passage:

Higgs, someone I have much respect for, is a Christian. I won’t get into my personal views in the arena of faith, but I mention this because I do not share what I assume is his belief in something like “original sin.” It may be that he thinks similar to me on the matter, or it may not. Suffice it to say I do not believe babies are “born bad,” and could even back this up with scripture for the Christians if I needed to.

However, even if this passage is referencing the common conception of original sin, or somehow alluding to it, that still would not negate the very eye-opening and salient truth that hit me today like a Mack truck.  

Or, what seems to me to be very true for now. And to me, is something like a familiar, brand new discovery that I’ve always known, but am just starting to realize, again…again.

Most people want security more than peace!?

When I enter into rational argument or debate with someone about the nature of the state, I assume inside that most likely they value peace, and simply think that having a centralized government like the ones that exist now is the best way to bring about the most peace possible, and mitigate the most violence and suffering.

They also seem to think such systems of governance are logical, so I set about untangling that knot, which is not too hard to do, so when they see it logically pulled apart, they will come to my side with a smile and say “Holy cow! I never thought of it that way before!” I have this likely naive expectation because that is more or less what happened in my own case. 

But that’s almost never what happens. And when I read Higgs’ thoughts today it was like seeing reality afresh, with new, clear glasses on after a lot of blurry, rainy days. Maybe…these people don’t want peace. At least, not as much as they say they do. Maybe…they want power.  

“Surely my Aunt Barbara doesn’t want power over me! She’s just a naive voter!”

Okay, but she is not so dumb that she cannot see the logic behind the simple argument that taxation is extortion. 

“Well, no. But surely they will understand that since human nature is fallible, putting fallible humans into seats of massive state power is a bad idea.”

No. Most likely they are only appalled by this when the power is being used against them. When it’s “their guy” in power, they are perfectly complacent. See the recent Republican outrage over Donald Trump’s house being raided. If the FBI were after their political opponents, they’d be very calm and happy while yelling “sic ’em” to the federal agents.

“Maybe it’s just my tone. I used to be acidic and confrontational because I felt so angry, and that turned people off. Then I toned it down and became empathetic to a fault. But then I was just ignored. I don’t get it. Nothing works.”

It’s not your tone. You just answered your own question. 

“So why in the hell don’t people seem to care, let alone listen?”

Because maybe, peace and justice and rights for others are not that important to them, if they themselves feel comfortable. They do not, as Higgs said, have to get any of the blood and guts on themselves, either, with the goons of government doing the dirty work for them.

“That would certainly explain all the bad arguments.”

Logic doesn’t enter the picture, does it? Because it is a tribal instinct of self-preservation they are operating from, and not their mind. They never graduated from the stage as a tiny child where you learn not to hit and pull and scream to get what you want. Their parents failed them. Schools brainwashed them into thinking violence is ALWAYS WRONG… unless a government does it. They know they don’t have the right to cage or kill you, themselves. But they believe they can magically outsource that right to the state. 

So while you, weird freak, value peace for all individuals on earth to the maximum possible, it is far down on their list of important things.

I don’t think people are born callous and stupid and evil like this in most cases. Head injuries, unrelenting violent social programming, and abuse from parents can all cause this problem. We know actual, clinical psychopaths are rare. So it is the cult programming that they’ve bought into that is to blame. It is now almost inseparable from their body and brain. You are, quite literally, trying to speak sense to someone in a cult who views your arguments as a literal threat to their life.

I guess we have to prepare accordingly and save the ones that still have ears. Why didn’t the evil dye of statism get all the way into them? I don’t know.

*The kanji characters behind the teacher in the feature image are, ironically, the word “air.”

While most regions of the world have left the masking largely behind, and “climate crisis” is the new boogeyman spooking the unthinking order followers, Japan is left in the lurch, still stringently obeying masking policies, getting injected with jab after jab of mystery pharma cocktail, and simultaneously leading the entire planet in coronavirus infection. But of course, “if we didn’t take these measures, it might be even worse.”　

The image above isn’t from 2020, or 2021. It was taken just days ago at the beginning of this month, in September. While speech development delays due to masking are now finally being acknowledged by “experts” after we’ve been shouting about it for two-and-a-half years, and the narrative on vaccines has gone from “You won’t get covid” to “you may be hospitalized from it but most likely it won’t be that bad,” to “Oh shit your immune system is damaged,” there’s one group that is still suffering the most from all this abuse: kids.

If you’re a child in Japan, every day is abuse. In the current humid, stultifying late summer heat in the land of the frying sun, almost all children, even when walking around outside, are wearing masks. Tokyo Disney wouldn’t even allow two-year-olds to bare their faces in the theme park until this month. Elementary school students are still required to cover their breathing holes. 

Elementary and pre-school school students are force-fed propaganda about a boogeyman virus day in and day out, and in many areas not allowed to talk openly to their friends at lunch. They are encouraged to “cheer in your heart” instead of vocalizing joy at school functions, concerts, and other events that used to give life special meaning and fun. 

Junior high school students no longer take their much-anticipated school trips (in Japan, middle school students traditionally travel to a far away location and spend a few days having a great time with their friends, comparable to a big event like a prom or bowling alley lock-in). Now they are treated to “virtual school trips,” while sitting masked, behind a plexiglass partition, in a hot classroom (schools do not typically use air conditioning here) watching a video presenter tell them about Kyoto and all the sites they would be seeing. 

If you’d like to see how fun the school trips are for those that do actually go, please see the picture below, whose bottom frame shows U.S. president Joe Biden and Japan’s prime minister Fumio Kishida breaking their own masking rules just this year at a fancy restaurant in Tokyo.

Is your blood boiling yet? Mine is. While schools and teachers continue these absurd practices, and children’s lives — their friendships, emotional development, health, and indeed the joy of childhood itself —are destroyed, I can’t help but wonder what their future will be like.

When they see that runners can smash their bodies together and run the Tokyo Marathon unmasked, and the leader of the country can break his own rules with no pushback, and their parents can crowd into swimming pools maskless but lecture the unmasked bus rider, it’s clear that in exchange for a childhood, what they are receiving is a very clear message: Life is meaningless, and so are you.

Japan’s child suicide rate was the highest ever in 2020. So was truancy. Those are children killing themselves, aged 6 to 18 years old.

CNN reported earlier on in this madness, back in November 2020: “more people died from suicide last month than from Covid in all of 2020.” Regarding the kids taking their own lives, local mainstream media behemoth NHK actually cited the “environmental change caused by the corona disaster” as the reason for the all-time high of 400 kids ending it all.

They thought they were better off dead. And looking at the adults they had to look up to and obey, and the abuse they had to suffer, it’s not hard to see how a child may be driven to such a dark place. 

I think the teachers, parents, newscasters, media companies, politicians, celebrities and drug companies who willingly continue to foist this propaganda and literal physical and psychological abuse on children and young people, without a second thought, and without even the tiniest action against what they know is wrong when they do have a second thought — never questioning the status quo and stepping up as a protector of the world’s most precious resource — are the ones that would actually be better off dying.

That sounds extreme to some maybe. But I don’t care. What is being done to kids is the real extreme of evil. 

The “corona disaster” blamed for the suicides was man-made. An illness is one thing. Destroying the lives of children because there’s supposedly a virus about (which wasn’t even a real threat to them by official statistics), is another. Ending festivals, killing economies and increasing domestic abuse thanks to stress and social atomization, making people hate each other, engendering division and mistrust, banning concerts, social outings, and fun — tearing apart and launching vile attacks on what it is to be human itself. These are all things children can see and feel. But not things they have the emotional capacity to process and deal with easily. To them, we are the world. We are the ones who are supposed to know how things work. To teach and protect them as they grow. And now you dehumanize them, making even simple, compassionate acts like showing a smile, laughing, or a hug, forbidden.

So as un-compassionate as it may sound: If you are one of these child abusers, unwilling to do anything about the current destruction: 死ね.

Some of us are still alive.

I’ve been enjoying learning how to dive a bit and identify some fish and spear ’em and eat ’em these past months.

After lots of very spooky (I’ve never really done diving around sunken rocks/tetrapods) and failed attempts — including a lost GoPro camera, stabbing myself in the heel, and a lost snorkeling mask — I finally started to spear some fish at a nice spot where the water has decent visibility, which really makes all the difference.

We’ve been eating a lot of fried rockfish — Japanese “mebaru” — at my house, and it’s been an awesome summer so far in that regard! The rockfish are some of the best tasting fish in the Sea of Japan and aren’t that hard to spear once you spot them.

I moved on from the small beach in the pic above to a new spot later the same day and the water was very clear. As I say, this makes all the difference. It’s much less ominous and spooky feeling, and… you can actually see the fish.

After the rockfish, the next type I got was a wrasse, or “bera” in Japanese.

After spearing this guy above I once again ran up to some guys fishing on the pier. They told me this was a ベラ, or wrasse, and that you can eat them, but they’re not very good. They were right. But in a survival situation it would be totally fine. Texture is weird. Still, like the rockfish, they are kind of slow and will hover around you almost like they’re in a daze at times, so they’re not crazy tough to catch.

I’ve been to several beaches this season and just finished a string of three consecutive days at the beach. Working midnights can be very rough, and insomnia sucks, but at least I can get out to the beach during the day if I can get my ass out of bed. Which I do, grumpy or not. Because life is now!!!

Well, these past three days of spearfishing have been enlightening. I’ve been wanting to level up my skills. Both in diving down deeper and spearing more challenging fish.

I saw some absolute monsters this weekend and they all evaded me. Still, as a last ditch effort to try and catch something good before the clouds come back this week, I went out at 5am this morning and ended up at a new place where the water is amazingly clear and light blue-green.

Could see down maybe 15-20 feet to the floor. All kinds of fish. Some mebaru, big wrasse, sea bream, tons of puffer fish as per usual, and some unidentified big bastards. Monsters.

I’d been trying to get these weird, sleek black fish I’ve been seeing swimming in schools since I started back in May, and today marks the first time I really chased a school, dove down a tiny bit to the cove where they hid, and speared one. I was super happy because they are much faster and seem more intelligent than the ones I’ve gotten thus far. And I had to work for it with an actual dive down.

I’m enjoying learning about all these fish, and also some basic practices regarding how to gut and prepare them. Also learned from direct experience that these blackfish (above) have spines like catfish. Got lanced today in the thumb when I grabbed it to pull it off the spear.

You’d have to round up a lot of these guys for a proper fish fry, but with the mebaru that wouldn’t be too hard to do. Now my eyes are on the big boys of the deeper waters. Still got some time before the armies of jellyfish float in in August, but they’re already showing up on the shore now. Beach, beach, beach!

Thanks for stopping by!

It’s not a full-on novel. More like a cliff notes of a full-on novel, and an autobiographical thing probably lacking proper character development. Technically, it’s a “novelette” by word count. Oh well, enough boring stuff. I never meant it to be orthodox because that was too intimidating, and I also didn’t really want to do it that way.

For anyone interested in reading “God Is an Anarchist,” I’ll include a readable PDF and download link below, a link to the book in 8 parts on Read.cash here, and if you really want a physical copy, mail me at voluntaryjapan@protonmail.com and I’ll see what I can do. Maybe work out something where folks can pay BCH and I’ll mail them out. I only printed 10 copies for now.

Regardless, since I have no publicity agent and am just doing this “anarchist” style, here’s a couple teasers/previews:

Thanks for stopping by, as always.

-Graham