All-Too-Thrilling Adventures Read: Crypto-Anarchists, Anarcho-Capitalists, and Old-Fashioned Drug Cartels
I’m surprised there hasn’t been more written about this incident, although it may just be that my dark-web access skillz are less than subpar. As reported here, it sure sounds like an example of the old truism: Just because ‘the cops’ are your enemies doesn’t make ‘the crooks’ your friends. From the Washington Post, last Monday, “An American ‘crypto-anarchist’ fled the country. He was just killed in Mexico’s ‘murder capital’”:
Bathed in the sunlight of Mexico’s dry season, his dreadlocks tumbling down his back, a man who went by the name “John Galton,” an apparent nod to the hero of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged,” observed almost two years ago, “There’s pockets of freedom all over the world if you’re willing to live in freedom.”
Galton paid a high price for that freedom. He was gunned down Friday by a band of men who stormed his home in Acapulco, where he and his girlfriend had found safe haven from drug charges in the United States, as they explained in a March 2017 video interview with the conspiracy site Press for Truth.
Joining a community of like-minded expatriates, Galton had sought to build a life as a self-made man. He advocated drug liberalization and taught classes on cryptocurrencies. He was set to be featured in a documentary called “Stateless.”…
His girlfriend, Lily Forester, nodded. Defending the once-glamorous Pacific Coast city now considered Mexico’s “murder capital,” she said, “It’s not perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot better than anything I’ve experienced in the States.”
On Friday, she was left pleading for help after the rampage left her boyfriend dead and another man, Jason Henza, injured…
Guerrero State police said in a statement Saturday that the survivors reported armed men showing up at a “cannabis greenhouse” and targeting Galton. The attorney’s office, which confirmed that Galton had been killed, said in a statement Sunday that it had found a marijuana laboratory on the premises, including white lights and gas tanks. No suspects had been named, and a motive for the killing remained unknown.
An email to the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs wasn’t immediately returned. The Associated Press reported that Galton was in his 20s and that Forester is, too.In a statement to CoinSpice, a cryptocurrency news site, Forester said, “I will release a statement when it is safe for me to do so. The news is wrong, but I have to wait to tell my story.”…
They crossed the border with $50 in cash. Once in Acapulco, they found odd jobs in the tourism industry, while also amassing followings on Steemit, a blogging and social networking site. Forester built a business blowing glass into pipes. Among their projects were organizing “Meat Ups,” which advocated a carnivorous diet, and creating “an uncensorable Wikipedia.”
They were founders of Anarchaforko, an anarchist conference and spinoff of the more well-known Anarchapulco, which brings 3,000 people to Acapulco each year for discussions about ways to “live unchained.” Both were to take place this month…
The Daily Beast has more on the Pied Piper of Anarchapulco:
… Galton was part of a small community of fellow anarcho-capitalists formed by Jeff Berwick, who promised a drug-friendly haven and hosts the annual “Anarchapulco” festival. Berwick says Galton and Forester should’ve known what they were getting into.
“They started up a competing conference to Anarchapulco, called Anarchaforko and John continued to be involved in one way or another with the production or sale of plants,” Berwick told The Daily Beast in an email. “Unfortunately, that is the one thing that is very dangerous to do in Mexico as the drug cartels will attack anyone they see as competition and that appears to have happened to John.”
Anarchapulco will go on as scheduled next week and might be even bigger due to the murder, Berwick says…
Berwick is a Canada-born anarcho-capitalist podcaster, who moved to Acapulco part-time in 2009 and became known for a hard-partying lifestyle. In 2015, he launched Anarchapulco, a festival for anarcho-capitalists, some of whom relocated to Acapulco full-time…
A former member of the community told The Daily Beast the community’s membership fluctuates, but is likely around 50 to 60.
This year’s Feb. 14-17 Anarchapulco promises a nudist pool, psychedelics, sex counseling, and sessions on radical homeschooling—as well as big-name Republican figures like former presidential candidate Ron Paul and Fox News personality Judge Andrew Napolitano.
The conference is located in a ritzy Acapulco hotel. Attendees will have shelled out $545 for tickets, with options to pay an additional $495 for an “investment summit,” $255 for the “Infinite Man” summit with a pickup artist, $140 for “De-Mystifying the Occult,” and $250 each for various drug ceremonies like “Jaguar Vision,” an hour-long DMT experience.
Anarcho-capitalists (“ancaps”) believe in dismantling the state and allowing unchecked capitalism to govern the world in its place. Even within the small anarchist world, ancaps are fringe. Anarchists typically describe their movement as inherently anti-capitalist. Their philosophy describes anarchy as the rejection of hierarchical structures, which they say capitalism enforces. Anarcho-capitalists, meanwhile, see money as a liberating force. They promote a variety of libertarian causes like using cryptocurrency, legalizing all drugs, and privatizing all public institutions like courts and roads. The movement reveres the novelist Ayn Rand, whose work outlines a philosophy of radical selfishness and individualism…
“After the first Anarchapulco, quite a few people moved down there, which became the core of this community. They were a mix of varying idealists, anarchists, heavily into drugs and partying and all that. That was the core of the group,” Mike said. “You don’t get a particularly nice, functioning community. Over time, the community’s broken up and splintered off about a dozen times.”
Mike said he grew worried about his physical safety. The city was notorious for murders; armed robbery and cartel extortion were a fact of life, he said. But Berwick and others make frequent reference to the ease of living in the city.
“At one point quite a large crowd came, but they were extremely naive,” Mike said. “Jeff was always saying publicly that Acapulco’s not dangerous, that you can do anything, nothing will happen to you. People believed him.”…
Anarcho-capitalists who complained of robberies or street corner assaults faced ridicule, Mike claimed.
“Because this is a very ideological group, everything Jeff says is dogma,” he said. “If you said anything contra to the dogma, you’d be ostracized and in some cases doxxed. I know people who moved there and got robbed… However, when they publicly state this, the whole community turns against them and treats them as some kind of informant or spy.”…
Anarchapulco, meanwhile, is still proceeding as scheduled. After the tragedy, the conference is more important than ever, Berwick said.
“Anarchists understand that the government’s prohibition of plants and substances cause these problems and if anything it just makes events like Anarchapulco even more important in order to change the world and get rid of the violence and chaos caused by government,” Berwick said.
I’d be only too pleased if there’s some kind of happy ending, or even lessons-learned conclusion, here… apart from the obvious ‘spokesman/entrepreneur accused of leading cult members into criminal lifestyle’, of course.
“His lawyer gave him several books that put him on a “fast-track toward anarchy,” he said, including Machiavelli’s “The Prince” and Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”” Only in America!
Guess going galt goes nowhere. Lesser of these me-first assholes, better the world.
Wow! Going to a place rife with murderous drug cartels, and starting a high-profile pot lab has to be the most creative way of committing suicide I’ve ever heard!
I’m shocked. Someone actually made money in bitcoin? Must have been by accident.
Interesting that anarchists have a community with rules enforced by a leader – sounds like a government to me…
I’ve run into a couple of these types. They’ll talk your ears off about how medieval Iceland was organized by voluntary membership without any centralized authority, and this proves that anarcho-capitalism is workable (at least for a few thousand people in a fishing-based economy). What they’ve never been able to prove is why anyone outside their tiny white male clique would want to live under such a system.
@The Midnight Lurker:
But the method lacks elegance. There are cheaper and simpler ways to do it. Although I suppose they would lack the requisite Galtian style points.
Reading further, heh:
Apparently he failed to notice that Ayn Rand’s ubermenschen paradise literally required a perpetual motion machine in order to have some semblance of functionality.
@dmsilev: Folk at the top of a pyramid scheme make the money.
He is a gringo and started his own grow operation in the heart of cartel country and they can’t think of a motive?
If he had just done the normal American thing and buy a vacation condo or home in some gated gringo community they would have left him alone and he would have been perfectly safe. Idiot. That’s like going into Taliban land and starting your own poppy farm.
@B.B.A.: I’m wondering why his girlfriend is still alive. There might be an interesting answer to that.
@afanasia: Because drug cartels are known for their compassion?
@Kent:
Thank you !
Rich, naive, knows it all, what could go wrong.
@dmsilev:
There’s money in bitcoin. There’s a weird case working out in Canada where the founder of a Bitcoin “vault” company unexpectantly died in India, and they can’t find the passwords, or vaults.
Over $130 Million’s missing.
@Jay: And people who are totally into disruption are learning about why there are regulations for continuity of business.
All these assholes forget that in their ideal society the meanest and most ruthless sonofabitch always wins.
Some shaggy gringo is no match for Los Zetas.
Also my wife is Chilean and she has a cousin who is a real estate attorney down there. So we actually heard about that Gringo Galt’s Gulch in Chile and I drove by it one time out of curiosity as it was between Santigao and the coast where my wife’s family has a house. They were complete idiots and completely scammed by the Chileans who sold them the land without the water rights. They are completely separate in Chile and water rights are completely privatized. Chilean land use and propery laws are also very complex and as developed as they are in say California. So you can’t just wing it. The local authorities will have no sense of humor about that. The place was a running joke on the Chilean expat forums.
Why Americans think they can parachute into countries that are older and have more complex property laws than even the US and then just wing-it, I have no idea. The arrogance is astonishing.
Imagine some Chinese just buying 500 acres of cheap desert somewhere outside LA and thinking they are going to build their own subdivision without bothering with permitting, zoning, etc. And imagine how fast the local land use authorities would shut that down. Same thing here.
Are you sure he just didn’t enter into a mutually beneficial agreement where he gave up his inconsequential ability to keep breathing for several grams of valuable lead?
@B.B.A.:
This BS was started by David Friedman a one time Big Name Libertarian – and my still be for all I know – and all around ignorant dimwit. While there wasn’t a “centralized authority” as in a modern nation-state medieval Iceland was ruled by an oligarchy of gothis, local chieftan/priests, who would back their rulings and maintain their power by force of arms.
@Jay: It’s not missing. It’s just no one can get to it.And then it depends on the value once it’s released.
@Mike J: If one bases their ersatz currency upon an external fiat currency, is one losing anything of value if the ersatz “fortune”is inaccessible?
@Jay:
Adn even this looks more like a scam than lost passwords due to death. The guy now in the news who lost his life savings tried to transfer his money out of the Quadriga Bitcoin in OCTOBER, and it had not yet processed.
I think those Bitcoins were already gone and the guy dying is a great excuse.
@Jay: I heard about that story. Amazing. Bitcoin is like a condensed course aimed at trying to teach libertarians about why currency regulations exist. I saw someone come up with the word’kleptocurrency’, which I think is near-perfect.
@Yutsano:
Nope, it’s missing. The wallets arn’t on his servers and the blockchain doesn’t say where it went.
@catclub:
Yup, the CIBC lawsuit.
I think in the end, it’s going to be a crash course in internet grifting.
@dmsilev:
Via Brad Delong, “Dunning-Krugerrands”.
Of course bitcoin was going to be involved. Or “Dunning-Krugerrands” as I’ve heard them called elsewhere.
This guy is another example of what people mean by “white privilege”
EDIT: Chetan Murthy…I see you beat me to it!
@Jay:
This is what I do not understand. Wouldn’t the blockchain record the transactions if the coins are gone, and at least have a pseudonym/email for whoever got them?
I thought the whole point was that blockchain records everything.
@dmsilev:
well put. CBOE Bitcoin futures are settled in …. dollars. aka useless fiat currency.
@catclub:
It does, but the problem is that the blockchain doesn’t identify if it was his money, his clients money, or company money, and all the movements are in small amounts to avoid disclosure laws,
And one of the “guys” also running a Dunning- Kuggerand Vault scam says on his Linked In that he has some of the wallets, but won’t talk to anyone unless they pay him $100 first.
Lost and vanished bitcoin is actually a feature not a bug. It is deliberately designed that way. The only way to get complete anonymity and and make sure that no government authority can track your holdings is to make sure that there is no central registry of any kind that associates the names of owners with their holdings.
Personally I like knowing that my name is linked to my modest 401k and IRA holdings and securely backed up at Vanguard and Fidelity. These people who put their entire retirement savings into some fly by night bitcoin exchange? Sheesh. That’s like taking it all to Vegas and letting it ride on red.
@AThornton:
OMFG, I can’t believe that my History degree is about to be useful!
You’re correct, and furthermore the system broke down in exactly the same way that capitalism now seems to be: concentration of power and wealth became a destablizing positive feedback loop. In the case of Iceland the gothar with smaller followings had to pledge fealty to the more powerful for protection. Eventually the handful of super-gothar had large enough followings that they could engage in armed conflict at a scale and duration previously unseen, to the extent where this became a preferred method of conflict resolution rather than bringing a legal case. The fishing/grazing economy suffered as lands went untended.
Oh, and resource exhaustion was also a factor. The island had been denuded of trees and so there was no more wood to build ships and ships were essential to the economy.
The King of Norway exploited all of these factors. He tightly controlled the export of wood to Iceland. He fomented conflict, backing now one, now another super-gothi to keep them at each others’ throats until the situation became so desperate that this island of (eyeroll) freedom-loving anarcho-capitalists willingly swore fealty to the Crown, and that was the end of the Icelandic Free State.
@Kent:
This applies even when they don’t leave their own country.
The word selfish was used up thread. It really is the defining concept of conservatism, and libertarianism is just an off shoot of that.
@Kent:
The odds are probably better in Vegas.
@Ruckus: Remember a libertarian is just a Republican who wants a legal hookers and blow.
This sounds hinky to me. The woman in the video is hinting it’s libertarian on libertarian crime. She says it’s an American. The second man in the video- there’s something off about his testimonial. It’s weird that they’re all excited that this might increase attendance at their rip off “workshop” or whatever it is, considering one of them just died.
I don’t know whether to believe any of them, frankly. They raise money on their blog and their leader ran a series of scams.
Ron Paul is tangentially involved too, so that’s a possible fraud marker. He’s a full time Right wing grifter now.
I’ll need verification of this whole story from an agent of the state, and the Fox news judge they invited for their convention doesn’t count :)
@afanasia:
It’s easier to send a message if you leave a traumatized messenger alive.
With all the shit facing the world presently, I can harvest zero sympathy for arrogant Acapulco dead guy.
@Mnemosyne: That sounds like the voice of experience!
@Joey Maloney:
Are you familiar with theTattúínárdǿla Saga?
@🐾BillinGlendaleCA: Hence the parasite DeVos clan.
@AThornton: I was not. That’s brilliant!
@AThornton: I’ve heard of Njorl’s Saga, does that count?
@Ruckus: “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” — John Kenneth Galbraith.
@Jay: “Died.”
@scott (the other one):
There’s a body, an autopsy, a funeral, a memorial service,
But the wife didn’t bother to notify any of the customers,
For a month.
E-crime is both interesting, and boring.
@RepubAnon: That would be because they’re capitalists who decided it would be trendy to call themselves anarchists. The word anarchy literally means without rulers (it is derived from the ancient Greek ᾰ̓́νᾰρχος), but due to an etymological misunderstanding, these schmucks think it means without a state. But the system they’re proposing would simply replace one set of rulers with another – or, realistically, simply further entrench existing rulers. It’s difficult to get anarchists to agree on anything, but one of the few things they will all agree on is that “ancaps” are right-wing posers who are trying to usurp their terminology the same way they’ve done with the word “libertarian” (which, for the record, was coined by the French anarchist Joseph Déjacque to refer to anarchist communism). And it’s mostly the same group of posers, too. Anarchism is and always has been a left-wing philosophy; it is in fact the oldest form of socialism (and vice versa). Anyone who calls themselves a right-wing anarchist doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
Hoocooda knowed!
“Shut up…You shouldn’t have been stupid then… Quit acting like a big baby.”
Occurred in Glendale, Arizona in 2017 (no idea why it’s only now becoming known).
The above quote is from a cop who tased a guy 11 times in front of his terrified children (including once in the testicles, cuz why the fuck not, right?, with a threat at the end to zap him in the penis — taser stuck in his shorts to demonstrate his stolid sincereity — cuz the cop was “thru fucking around with you!”). This, after never allowing the guy to comply with the officer’s increasingly unreasonable and unlawful demands.
The guy is suing (course), but that thin blue line is a helluva drug.
And the cop? In jail? Fired at least? No, silly! Suspended 30 hours. Still on the force.
@(((CassandraLeo))): …to put it more succinctly, the old saying goes that Republicans call themselves “libertarians” when they’re trying to get laid. This is like that, except taken further, I guess.
@poleaxedbyboatwork: Jesus. ACAB
…well, that may be slightly hyperbolic, but some days it really doesn’t feel like it.
@Gozer:
Most of these assholes assume that they’re the meanest and most ruthless sonofabitch until they find themselves broke and metaphorically looking down the barrel of someone else’s gun – and, as this story shows, it’s not always metaphorically.
@(((CassandraLeo))):
Understand the impulse.
Have had my own run-ins with chippy cops (nothing so dramatic as what’s in that vid, but I know that helpless feeling of being utterly at the mercy of a man whose prime directive is servile obedience to his will and treats you like he’s cruelly breaking a dog with force; it’s infuriating and terrifying).
That said, we need cops. What we don’t need are bad cops. The bar should be maximally high for anyone who is entrusted with lethal force. And the circling-the-wagons reflexive ass-covering of nearly every police force to heinous behavior by their officers is a disservice to the officers who are honorable and to the citizenry they are entrusted with protecting and serving.
Jesus, that set me off. Gotta listen to something beautiful, cuz my blood is boiling.
@poleaxedbyboatwork:
Jurassic Pork references a 60 year old cop who could have retired 20 years ago with a full pension, but instead clings to the job for the power and authority.
@poleaxedbyboatwork: Yeah, I get what you mean. The problem is that, as you acknowledge, in our current system even a lot of the “good” ones end up falling into the blue wall of silence. The ones that actually do speak up against injustices seem to be far too rare.
My actual stance is closer to Carlin’s.
@(((CassandraLeo))):
As he so often did, Carlin saw it sooner and said it better. Tx. for that.
This seems weird…and also having either of those guys in the same place as nudist pools, drugs and sex counseling is revolting.
@Villago Delenda Est:
John and I are simpatico.
@Joey Maloney:
An Icelandic wake-up call
@prostratedragon:
https://rainforests.mongabay.com/09easter_island.htm
Organized anarchy. Does not compute.
Is the culmination of the evening a ceremonial burning of Robert’s Rules of Order?
@AThornton: Thanks for link. Looks like I missed a lot in my 2 quarters of Old Norse in grad school in the early 60s!
@Chetan Murthy: I liked the very short saga we read in which Thor has a major temper tantrum and swings his hammer at everyone.
@Ladyraxterinok: Is that the Hittënlottënlied?
@(((CassandraLeo))): So, when did sheep start refusing those types?
Do they offer classes like “How to be an Even Bigger Asshole”?
@B.B.A.:
Do libertarians think that the thralls enslaved themselves voluntarily?
All this talk about crypto currency and ancient Icelandic history, and I’m just sitting here dumbstruck at the thought of Ron Paul and Judge Napolitano kicking back together in the nude pool.
Sounds like these guys would have benefited from naming a local authority, let’s call him a “lord”, who could provide protection in exchange for capital. But maybe this “lord” is not strong enough to offer protection? In that case perhaps an alliance of lords could elect a sovereign authority, I don’t know, let’s call him a “king”. Am I doing this right?
@Kent:
Haha, that’s just counting on random chance! Fools! You have to have a scientific basis. Now, I just put our life savings down on Dunning-Kruger at 20:1 in the 4th at Pimlico because some random guy gave me a tip. Evidence-based! Science!
So we’re on our annual traditional weekend getaway, ostensibly Trump-free. I’m just kind of peeking in to the real world while my wife’s not looking. Anything interesting happen at Friday’s hearings or was it just “executive privilege / 5th amendment / I forgot” and silence?
I see Don Jr. is expecting to be indicted momentarily, so there’s that.
@Citizen Alan: I am pretty sure neither of those two are showing up. Probably haven’t even been contacted. This is a fraud economy.
I started reading this story last week, but was repulsed by it because the failure of the little experiment was inevitable. It’s weird how some people persist in the delusion that anarchy can work. Kinda reminds me of anti-vaxxers, who endanger the lives of their children and others by insistently hanging on to a fantasy.
Also Interesting that this is a delusion of both some on the extreme right and the extreme left.
Did any women rise to leadership positions within the group?
@sukabi: “This seems weird…and also having either of those guys in the same place as nudist pools, drugs and sex counseling is revolting.”
They want an orgy. Arrangements have probably been made to ‘take care’ of them. And if the organizers are smart, arrangements for photographs have also been made.
@Joey Maloney: That is very cool information. Thanks.
@B.B.A.: Read Njal’s Saga for what Iceland was like in those times. Clans carrying out feuds in a Hatfields v. McCoys manner with spears and axes was the norm. If your clan lacked friends, you could all be killed with impunity. In short, it was much like Mexico in the drug cartel regions, except without the firearms.
@AThornton:
Thank you
The irony (one of many) is that drug cartels are themselves a form of government, formed for the express purpose of bringing order and stability to a lawless chaotic environment.
Because markets, even the most primitive kind, can’t exist without some sort of structure, a safe place in which to operate.
@The Midnight Lurker: yeah, you can truly be free in an anarchist state when you can afford your own army. Guess they didn’t get the memo.
Thomas Hobbes:
@low-tech cyclist: worth mentioning that Hobbes lived during the Thirty Years War — one of the worst in history — and more locally the English Civil War, which ended with their Trump-like king being executed.
@JGabriel: I have often wondered, What does a glibertarian become after being curbstomped by an even meaner sonofabitch? It is now apparent that in at least one instance, the answer is: Rather messily & permanently dead.