Replace “statists” with “zombie hoards” and you’ll see the problem. No one ever tries to cure the zombies, they just try to shoot them in the head. – Marc Seltzer
In response to Statists are not the Enemy, Marc Seltzer just nailed it with the above quote. Are you talking to statists, trying to find common ground, finding issues on which you can form broad coalitions with them, coalitions that cross traditional partisan boundaries? Or are you just waiting and plotting and planning to shoot them in the head, as if they were zombies?
It’s not a false dichotomy but a question to determine what your general focus is. I prefer the former. I don’t want anyone to die for a cause, if it can be avoided. I prefer that people live for causes instead.
By the way, all this talk of statists do this and statists do that, be careful you don’t engage in collectivization of them. If you group billions of people together and talk about them as if there were all the same, is that logically sound? Be careful you don’t dehumanize them by reducing them to a single, nameless profile. “The statist does this,” “The statist does that.” These methods are not consistent with a reasoned approach, tho they may be convenient for fundamentalists.
8 replies on “Are you Talking to Statists, or just Waiting to Shoot them in the Head?”
Well-put, George. Food for thought!
Good Post. I have to say I appreciate your efforts to not alienate others and to take a more egalitarian peaceful stance in much of what you condone. I am seeing this us vs. them thing cropping up in this discussion. I think more of this needs to be addressed. These so-called ‘statists’ are not disappearing when the state does. They are people we must learn to work with.
Thanks guys.
Indeed, I was surprised at the outcry against the original “Statists are not the Enemy” post. Seems I touched on a sacred cow.