Slovak MP, former Interior Minister and head of the Christian Democrats of Slovakia party Vladimír Palko has weighed in on this development with a brief opinion piece published in three languages at La Voce della Slovacchia, a primarily Italian-language news outlet on the Slovak scene. The piece is entitled “Gay marches end in tyranny“. Yes, you read that right.

The homosexual lobby wants to achieve a situation where the homosexual lifestyle is respected by the majority society as something normal and natural.

I’m unsure, myself, what the “homosexual lobby” seeks to achieve in Slovakia. But if it includes this, I support it whole-heartedly. Because what we have in the meanwhile is a situation where it’s considered “normal” and “natural” to hate anyone operating outside the religio-culturally prescribed heterosexual model, and act accordingly toward them.

Palko then explains the “tyranny” he wants his readers to fear is coming, that they might grant him and his cronies more power:

I will mention the example of Judge Andrew McClintock from Sheffield, who lost his judges robes because he did not wish to preside over cases where he would by law have to award guardianship of children to a homosexual couple. Another example is the employee of City Hall in London, Lilian Ladele, who will no longer be able to do her job as wedding registrar, because she had a problem with her conscience in “marrying” homosexual couples.

So, what Palko wants those who read his screed to fear is that government workers will be “tyrannized”. Awwwww! It makes me want to go run right out and give the nearest police officer a great big hug.

As long as issues such as sexual orientation and marriage are to fall under the baneful gaze of states, it should be clear to anyone, Palko included, that the only proper function of the government employees handling them is to simply carry out the law impartially. And if they can’t handle that, fine, let them go out and get into an honest line of work instead.

My tongue does not belong to the state

Students and teachers in schools where the teaching language is Hungarian should get ready for an increased number of inspections of Slovak lessons. This is the response from Slovak National Party Minister of Education Ján Mikolaj to words over the weekend from Hungarian President László Sólyom, according to whom Hungarians in Serbia, Romania and Slovakia should learn the state language as a foreign language.

…they should learn the state language as a foreign language, one politician said. And in reaction, another politician submitted a proposed program to increase the quality of teaching of the state language in schools where the teaching language is that of national minorities. A program which, among other things, would require inspections of Slovak lessons which would then be used as a basis to “create innovation in the state’s educational program”.

The “State Tongue”

I don’t know when the state grew a tongue, since the state is just an abstract concept. When I want to go and take care of something official, I don’t go to the state but to an official office. Therefore, I see it more as an official language. And, under that label, it only has to be used at official offices.

The state doesn’t have the right to lecture me as to how I’m going to speak with my employees or customers, or in which language I’m going to carry out written communication with people, be it an advertisement, classified ad or a poster on my property or land or that of someone who has agreed to let me put it there. Why, Messrs. Politicians, are you interfering in my property? I didn’t authorize the state to do this in any fashion. I haven’t given my property to you, nor have I lent it to you.

Teaching the state tongue, and the state education program

I would also like to ask, dear Politicians, why do you want to decide which language I or my children shall speak? I don’t recall that I signed over the power of decision-making to you for myself and my posterity regarding my life or my body. Or is it that you want to declare that I’m your property? Because that’s how you’re behaving toward me and my children. Are we the modern slaves of your state system?

And the final question for you will be: Why are you using the forceful extortion which YOU call “taxation” and “contributions” to create a centrally-planned economy in education? (And not just there, but I’m only looking at the educational system right now.)

Leave it to me where to put my children, or to where they want to go. Leave what I and my children choose from the field to us, along with what we choose to learn. We want to choose freely among schools where curricula are created according to our current needs and demands, not according to your momentary moods, emotions or fits of power, nor according to the pressure and interests of lobbyists.

And so…

Don’t steal our property from us and don’t create a system based on violence (extortion/taxation) or the institutions (state schools, paid for from taxes) built upon that violence. We are just ordinary people and we don’t know how to compete with those powerful lobbyists who stand behind you and lobby you every day for laws which are acceptable to them and which privilege them versus us. We don’t want state-sponsored positive discrimination.

One pearl in closing: “On Monday, Prime Minister Róbert Fico labeled Sólyom’s words as an ‘insidious attack’ and as a ‘splintering of nationhood’.” Mr. Fico, when did I give you the legitimacy to rule over me? You, or any of your predecessors?

My life, my body and my property do not belong to the state… or do they?

Ján Tralich, Thursday 18 March 2010

My original plan (after setting aside the absurd proposition of trying to turn the Slovak state against one of its own agents) for how to respond to my beatings at the hands of the Slovak police was to:

1. Leave the country
2. Publish the story online
3. Attempt to make a media story of the incident

I’ve done numbers 1 and 2 already. The question is now: should I do number 3?

I have the media and other contacts I need already, I think. If any of them chose to actually make a story of it is another question.

Possible outcomes include:

• Nobody touches the story
• It’s published, and yields some good
• It’s published, and my life gets even more difficult

A big part of me wants to strike back at these monsters. Another part recognizes that the first and third possibilities are the more likely ones.

As context to all of this, Bratislava is still home to me. I’d like to go back there and try to resume my life at some point.

What do you think?

Bruising to right upper arm showing finger impressions of Miroslav Pašek

Slovak State Police hired thug Miroslav Pašek has learned how to inflict great pain with his hands while leaving few if any marks on the victim’s body.

Most of the blows he struck against me were to my ribcage and upper chest. No bruising at all was ever visible there. Nevertheless, more than six weeks later, I still have twinges of pain in that area when I move or lay down in certain positions.

The bruise shown here is a product of Pašek momentarily losing control. When he came into my cell demanding that I sit up rather than lay down, he must’ve been gosh-awful furious that I wasn’t all instantly obedient. The bruise resulted from Pašek hauling me up from the bench by the arm, and clearly showed the shapes of three of his fingers.

Tisk tisk, Miro.

Bruising to left knee, courtesy of Miroslav Pašek

I’m not entirely certain how this injury to my knee arose. I may have been kicked or stomped in the knee after having fallen to the ground in pain after being hit. Or, it may be that my other knee impacted this one during one of those falls, and caused the bruise. Unclear to me.

This bruise was visible immediately. A second, even larger bruised emerged over the succeeding days higher up on the same leg. Similar uncertainty as to its origins.

All this stuff — except for the residual bruised-rib pain I mentioned above — is healed up now. Physically, I’m okay.

The psychological and emotional effects, however, are ongoing. I’ll be writing more about that in the near future.

From the show announcement:

On Todays Show We Have Jeff Nabers & Phoebe Chongchua Authors of 5 Steps To Freedom. How To Cut Your Dependence On Institutions And Escape Financial Slavery. Also On The Show: Mike Gogulski Who Has Renounced His American Citizenship And Is Now Living In Bratislava, Slovakia. Hosts James Cox, Michael Shanklin & Todd Barnett will be discussing The Movement’s articles on current.com, and the weekly news events. Please Call In To The Show On (347) 633-9636

I’ve clipped out my segment and provide it here as a podcast.

Listen below, or download. 26m59s, 12.3MB MP3.

I want to express HUGE gratitude and give big, big thanks to the people of the Language of Liberty Institute and the others who made the LLI Liberty and Entrepeneurship Camp in Martin, Slovakia possible.

You are:

• Mary Lou Gutscher — Top organizatrix, cruise director, mama bear
• Glenn Cripe — Flow steerer, piano man, inspirational focus
• Andy Eyschen — Co-[redacted], [redacted] of [redacted] and [redacted]
  
• Radovan Ďurana — Semi-detached Master of All Things, glue man
• Dušan Viluda — Súdruh, kolaborant, opatrovateľ, spolupracovník a kamarát všestkým

At the camp, I made a bunch of new friends, met several new co-conspirators, a collaborator, a couple of secret society bothers, at least two business partners and a handful of new comrades.

None of this would have been possible without your dedication and perseverance. I have great luck to have been able to ride along in the wake of the energy you mustered and deployed, and to have thus made such connections.

Major thanks to all of you for making the week in Martin something amazing — something brilliant.

Milý súdruh Dušan! Okrem toho, že Ti srdečne ďakujem, poprosil by som, aby si mohol viezť moje poďakovanie aj Barborke, ktorá nás dala takú dokonalú a povznášajúcu demonštráciu slobody (i naozaj šikovnosti a zručnosti) v akcii! Zároveň ďakujem Tvojmu synovi aj ostatným zamestnancom hotela. Súčasne, uvidíme sa, kedy môžeme sa rozprávať na tému toho obchodého nápadu… že?

The American Heritage Dictionary, among other definitions, suggests that a border is “The line or frontier area separating political divisions or geographic regions; a boundary.”

"Warning! State border!" -- sign at Devín, on the Slovak side of what was once the officially-impassible border between Republik Österreich and Československá socialistická republika

I’ve heard about these border things, but I’ve never actually seen one.

I got to thinking about this because the Motorhome Diaries crew (agorist comrades Jason Talley and Pete Eyre) just got stopped and searched and denied passage across one of these “border” things. From the reports, it sounds like the “border” in question was one dividing two political entities which call themselves “United States of America” and “Canada”.

Huh. These borders things sound a bit dangerous.

I offer a few alternate definitions for your consideration:

bor-der (bôr’dər) n.:

1. An imaginary line near which organized criminals in and out of uniform may stop, search, kidnap, cage, shoot, rob or otherwise harm peaceful people without consequence.
2. An imaginary line representing a place at which two or more tyrants agree to stop killing, raping, maiming and robbing each others’ slaves, the better to continue enslaving and stealing from their respective territorial thralls.
3. An imaginary line marking zones of exclusivity for legalized privilege in the forms of taxation, regulation, reporting duties, “law” enforcement, subsidy, etc.

Dangerous indeed. Stay away.

Anyone else have their own definition for “border”? Let’s hear ‘em in the comments!

This (re)awakening created a huge excitement in me, which needed to be shared immediately. So, I started calling close friends and having long telephone conversations. Some of those friends are in the US and the UK. I really wasn’t paying attention to where I was calling or for how long.

So, the downside fruit: my mobile phone bill for the last billing period is for €528.86. Argh!

Can ya help me out with that? Donations welcome via the ChipIn widget or via “support nostate.com” above. The US$699 number represents the amount over and above my usual ~€30 monthly bill.

The full bill is available in PDF form here, in Slovak: T-Mobile bill of doom

And when you’re done responding to my own rather trivial blegging, Anarcho-Professor Roderick Long is in need of serious mutual aid, due to the tax man robbing him.

It is a necklace with a pendant in the shape of Kurdistan, bearing the Kurdish national emblem and colors.

Free Kurdistan!

Stateless anarchist Gogulski posting a nationalist statist symbol! Way off, you say?

Free Kurdistan is an idea. It is a dream shared by millions inside and outside the territory. First and foremost, it is an idea about community, identity and self-determination. A dream and an idea to celebrate.

Secondarily, Free Kurdistan is an idea that must touch the ground someplace. Within the generally-accepted context of things on this planet, that means that Free Kurdistan should become a state.

‘Round these parts, we hold that states are illegitimate, unnecessary and undesirable. However, I support the idea of Kurdistan becoming a state, both because that’s what a lot of Kurds want for themselves, and because I hold that so long as we are to have states, we should have as many as possible, and that they should be as small as possible.

Free Kurdistan!

Most reaction was very positive: smiles, thanks, change of body language to indicate a dropping of defenses.

Sign for the Biedronka supermarket in Gryfów Śląski

Those who refused to accept my little gift, by and large, tended to be working in wage employment. Marketplace vendors, sole traders and so on were delighted. The lovely young woman wearing a boring gray knit corporate shirt behind the counter at the KFC, and the security guard there, didn’t want anything to do with ladybugs.

The ladybug (Polish: biedronka, Slovak: lienka) has positive associations in people’s minds in this area, at least in Poland and Slovakia. Killing a ladybug is considered bad luck, at the very least, which leads a lot of folks to consider seeing one as good luck.

And my luck seems to be increasing.