I’ve Evolved … into an Anarchist

George said;
“Actively withdraw my consent from governments.”

Governments (entities that use force to limit individual freedom) will always exist whether you consent of not. Even in the most anarchist society ever imagined, some individual freedoms will be inhibited by an ad hoc committee of other individuals. Baring suicide you are forced to deal with the current government. You can accept the status quo or work to change it(political action). You can not eliminate government. Giving government another name does not eliminate it.

Of course, the LP or the BTP or any other organized political party is not necessarily a way to improve on individual freedom, but anarchy is no solution either. As a matter of fact, anarchistic activity actually increases the popularity of more government among the general public. .

“The proof of Anarchy” video is not a proof of Anarchy but an argument for minarchy. If you take the the last segment seriously, you are already living in an anarchist society so just sit back and be happy. Oh, you are not satisfied with the current incarnation of an anarchist society? Then you must engage in political activity to change it. Or you could just move to Somalia.

You know, I really don’t like the law of gravity. I think I might just refuse to consent to it. If we all did that it would just go away. Wouldn’t it? Of course we do need some gravity, so I will contract with Ajax Assurance Associates to provide me with just enough gravity to keep ne from drifting off into space but not enough to hinder my arm flapping over flight of Philadelphia.

Yes I do think all self proclaimed anarchists are crazy, Not bad people. Not stupid people. Just temporarily deranged. Harsh reality is both the cause and cure for this derangement. Some recover and some don’t. Enablers prolong and deepen the derangement.

Over the past 18 months I’ve come to the same conclusion. I joined the LP years ago after finally realizing the Republican Party’s small government rhetoric was hypocritical if not downright dishonest. I eventually decided that government is a draconian and inhumane solution to societal problems. Government’s only tool is the initiation of force. Government creates far more problems than it claims to solve. In areas public education, drug prohibition, War on Terror, poverty, healthcare, economy etc the government continues to expand its power and control while the problems get larger and larger. We must try something different.

I’ve enjoyed watching your ‘evolution’, George. I look forward to reading your posts in the future!

Congratulations, George! I went through about the same thing 2-3 years ago. Very liberating. If you’re like me, you’ll find that the temptation to get drawn back into electoral politics is strong, but it will pass.

Here’s an article to inspire you (no link, private subscription service):

Direct vs Indirect Action

If you haven’t already read it, then I suggest you get yourself a copy of “How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World” by Harry Browne. This book is a classic, and is now back in print.

What makes the book worthy of the description “classic” is in the way it identifies two ways to working toward change – the “direct action” method and the “indirect action” method.

This is not a review of the book – but I would like to elaborate on these alternative direct/indirect action strategies – as I believe such an understanding to be crucial to anyone seeking greater personal freedom.

Let’s say you’re sitting in front of the TV – and fuming over the type of news you are being subjected to. Things like: new taxes proposed, infringements on freedom of speech, reports on how education is failing young people, welfare abuse – and so on. You get the picture – a typical week’s fare of news!

Of course, a lot of people couldn’t give a hoot – and happily gulp down another beer, and return to their life of grazing (as in sheep!) But if you DO give a hoot, then you have a couple of options.

The most popular by far is to “do something about it” by becoming politically active. By this I don’t necessarily mean joining a political party, but that one can do “political” things – like writing letters to the editor, or joining pressure groups.

Let’s take one example. You’re fed up with high taxation, so you decide to do something about it by joining a political party that promises to reduce it. You also bring it up in conversations and join some tax-reducing lobby group. Soon, many hours of your life are taken up by these actions.

In this case, you would have subscribed to a strategy of “indirect action”. Why indirect? Because all your efforts (to reduce your tax burden) are put into “indirect” ways of achieving it – things like letter writing, attending meetings, delivering pamphlets, calling talkback radio – all in the hope of persuading OTHER people to listen up and do something about it. It is “indirect” because your actions do not directly reduce your tax.

Now, politicians LOVE indirect action like this, including the ultimate indirect action – the VOTE. They love it because it saps your energy – without any corresponding results. It makes you feel as though you are achieving something – when you’re not (well, not much anyway). It is the ultimate energy-drain and I am quite convinced this is a major trap for the otherwise sane person intent on making his life freer.

Okay, let’s look at the opposite strategy – direct action. Using the same scenario – you’re fed up with high taxation – how would you tackle this using “direct” means? Well, as a reader of this newsletter, I’m sure you already know the answer. You take whatever steps necessary to personally reduce your own tax burden.

So, instead of diverting your energy to letter writing, meeting attendances, talkback phone calls etc, you direct your energy to finding out and implementing ways to actually reduce your tax bill.

So you might decide to do more “cash” jobs. You may decide to open an offshore account and start a tax-free nest-egg. You may decide to get a very creative accountant to ensure you get the greatest number of deductions. You get the picture.

The argument in favour of “direct action”, rather than “indirect”, is that it takes far less personal energy to achieve measurable results – that directly affect your own life.

As a comparison: you could spend 5, 10, 20 years of your life working for “change” from within the system. And at the end you could fail miserably – because the system is almost impenetrable. Or, you could work directly to change your own personal situation and see results in months – or a year or two at most.

Let’s take one more example: You’re not happy with the education your kids are receiving. The “indirect” way of dealing with this could consist of any or all of the following: join the school board in the hope of bring change; vote for a party that promises change; write letters to the editor; argue with your teacher friends, march in the streets – and so on.

Or, you could simply withdraw your child and place him/her in a private school with a record of achievement, or do the teaching yourself.

One strategy would actually impact on your child’s education, the other one would simply drain your energy.

Of course I can hear a dissident voice saying, “But isn’t this rather selfish, only solving your own problem – when you could be bringing about necessary societal changes – for the benefit of all?”

Precisely. It is selfish – and rightly so. You have every right to act in your own self interest. Your life isn’t long enough to take on the burdens of the world – at the expense of your own or loved one’s life. Think of it this way – if you had a child who could die of some hard-to-cure disease, would you rather direct your energy to lobbying the politicians and medical profession to get their act together – or put all your effort into trying to save the life of your child (by seeking potentially effective treatment)?

If you want to do a bit of both – direct and indirect – because it makes you feel better, then that’s okay. But be very clear, if its results you want, then you’ll achieve far more by directing your energy where it matters – on your own life.

Welcome, fellow traveler on the road to freedom!

My own “evolution” took a similar course, with the final metamorphosis happening about 3 years ago.

Cheers!

Actually, George, I’ve already figured out a way for one to be a morally self-consistent anarcholibertarian while still remaining in the LP: http://libertarianmajority.net/no-1st-force-pledge. However, I’ve yet to find anyone in the LP who is a pure enough anarchist to take the pledge.

While you’re reading up on anarcholibertarianism, I would hope you test it by seeking out the strongest arguments against it that you can find. If you can find any stronger than those I summarize at http://libertarianmajority.net/platform-portal#Advocacy, I’d love to hear about it.

And if you really want something that will blow your hair back, read up on Foldvarian geolibertarianism at http://ecolibertarian.org/.

As even Rothbard has pointed out, the claim that “participating in the political process is implicit consent” thoroughly undermines the anarcholibertarian position. 130M Americans just voted for President, and 170M Americans are registered to vote. Only one concession could be more devastating to the anarchist position that this idea that all of these people are implicit consenters to our current political institutions. That concession would be to agree that not emigrating from America is implicit consent to the American State.

Voting is in fact a form of self-defense, not voting is unilateral disarmament, and these “implicit consent” arguments are a form of surrender. For more, see Roderick Long’s Dismantling Leviathan From Within at http://libertariannation.org/a/f24l3.html#6.

It’s a non sequitur to say that voting presupposes acceptance that the State should exist. If there are two marked paths through the woods, taking the shortest one does not presuppose acceptance that a marked path should exist.

The anarchist argument against social contract theory is that acts like residency and voting cannot be taken as consent. You just gave away a big chunk of that argument.

Yes, not voting can be an expression of denied consent. But it’s an elementary fallacy to think this necessarily implies that voting expresses consent.

My views on the authority of the state are at http://knowinghumans.net/2009/01/whence-authority-of-state.html. My views on secession are at http://ecolibertarian.org/manifesto.

It must be nice to feel so secure in your liberty that you can practice this form of unilateral disarmament against the State. :-) I wonder how many gay anarchists here in California declined to vote against Prop 8? Public choice theory tells us voting — or very loudly not voting — can only be used as a self-expressive consumption good because the cost of voting irrationally (i.e. contrary to well-informed consideration of your goals) is so low. This is consistent with my theory that, more so even than most libertarians, anarcholibertarians tailor their activism more for purposes of self-expression than for effecting change. I’ve said for years that this is the “fundamental problem of the Libertarian Party: its activists tend to care more about exhibiting their ideological purity than about influencing electoral politics in the direction of increased liberty.” I don’t claim to strike this balance perfectly, but I think that trying to maximize the number of votes for more liberty is the best way to seek this balance.

My paths argument isn’t an argument that you should take a path. It’s an argument that taking a path doesn’t endorse the existence of the path. When pro-liberty voters boycott elections, that doesn’t weaken statism, it strengthens it. No state will ever be overthrown through boycott (i.e. personal secession). Your choices are either flight, revolt, geographic secession, reform, or surrender. You can pretend all you want that what you’re doing is akin to revolt, but it looks, walks, and quacks like surrender.

I’m not going to argue that anarchists should vote — i.e. pursue the reform option. I think any anarchist who actually believes what he says should pursue either flight, revolt, or geographic secession. I don’t see how dropping your ballot constitutes one of these three options.

Voting clearly confers an ability to effect change. That your one vote has no more such ability than the votes of millions of others is not something to whine about, because the only alternative to the potential tyranny of the many is the potential tyranny of the few. (This is especially true under the alleged third alternative of anarchy, as demonstrated by 100% of every circumstance in which organized crime has operated. Private markets in justice is perhaps the most thoroughly-refuted experiment in all the social sciences.)

I don’t use the phrase “ideological purity” to “smear”, because I’m not shy about proclaiming my own ideological purity. In case you somehow missed it, I consider myself to be a more ideologically pure libertarian than any of you confused anarcholibertarians.

The equal right to protect the rights of others is a corollary of the equal right to do anything that is not aggression. So it comes from wherever you think the latter right comes from. Libertarians don’t all agree why persons each are endowed with the rights we all recognize, so in a political context I just hold these truths to be self-evident.

Your assertion that the U.S. government enslaves you or me is simply a coarse insult to the memory of every actual slave who died for the dream of even a fraction of the freedoms you take for granted — a level of secured freedom that is without parallel in the history of our species and planet.

I beg the state for nothing. I just agree with Jefferson that to secure our rights, governments are instituted among Men, and are controlled by Man through representative democracy. Jefferson was no beggar. When ballots were not an option, he chose bullets. If I ever give up on ballots, I’ll be reaching for my bullets. Reaching for your keyboard while you drop your ballot does not make you a revolutionary, it just makes you a partially-disarmed reformer.

If you want to be more than an armchair anarchist, then don’t just renounce your involvement with the state’s mechanism for self-governance — the one place where the state exposes its neck to you. Instead, renounce your use of all of the state’s services — streets, water, sewage, power, police protection, justice, etc. (Of course, it’s difficult or impossible for you to not use certain public goods like protection from contagion, conflagration, foreign invasion, etc.) You yourself just said “When you use something, you validate it, you give it your personal sanction.” OK, so practice what you preach. Stop using every service whose provision is predicated on state force. And of course, stop paying any taxes, because to pay them is just to beg the state not to punish you for ignoring its monopolies. Go live in the woods like Ted Kaczynski, only don’t endorse the state like he did by occasionally walking along the state’s roads to go use the state’s postal service. Be a REAL personal secessionist, not like that state-begging wimp Kaczynski.

Or be a revolutionary. Go park a Ryder truckful of ammonium nitrate next to a government building like the heroic Tim McVeigh did. After all, every single person in the Murrah Federal Building was using the State’s services, and thus had “validated” the State and given their “personal sanction” to the State making you a “slave”. They all thus clearly deserved to die. We need to make such slavery-validating children think twice before they give any more personal sanction to the State by using a government daycare center.

You’re young. Your views are evolving rapidly. In time you’ll look back at such “slave” rhetoric and wince, just as I wince at rhetoric I once used when I was not much younger than you. But that’s OK — far better to live an examined life and grow from the self-examinations, than to run permanently aground on the first dogma you find that seems to offer safe harbor from the storms of uncertainty about one’s available choices.

John Galt said;
“If you didn’t give your consent, actively, it isn’t present.”

Modern “anarchists” can define their own meanings to common words and phrases, but that foes not change reality and those redefinitions will not be accepted by the overwhelming majority of the rest of the world.

The concept of “Qui Tacet Consentit ” has been the consensus for thousands of years.

I’ve also, sadly I might say, have given up hope on the LP’s ability to effect change and therefore have stopped voting for any real reason. I voted for Obama as a bet to bring a fence hanging Deomocrat over to our side, believing that the Obama presidency would be a excercise in futility. I have only been able to successfully argue in favor of the lack of government and organizations who attempts to used a government system to achieve a trully greater free market economy have failed in my lifetime. We should stop wasting our time and money fighting politically and pool our resources to advance free market activities through quality investment and organization. I like the Doug Casey method. Become properous and enfluence our world.

It’s a non sequitur to claim that to exercise a choice is to endorse and advocate the existence of the institution or framework that offered that choice. The http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem is just one thought experiment of many that can expose the error in such reasoning. Another example is if every ballot included an I-reject-the-state option. Even if the results were non-binding, checking that box wouldn’t imply consent for the existence of the state — any more than delivering a less-than-mortal blow to your enemy implies that you desire your enemy to remain alive.

Exploiting a weakness in the machinations of an opponent does not imply endorsement of the existence of that opponent or his machinations. You’re confusing expressed consent with a tiny opportunity cost of not expressing rejection of the state. If you ostentatiously decline to vote, but you voluntarily get a driver’s license or a marriage license or a building permit, then you are embracing the state’s machinations much more tightly than merely by voting for maximal reduction of the state.

In game-theoretic terms, the strategy of voting for more liberty dominates the strategy of ballot boycotting. In any scenario in which liberty is increased by liberty-lovers boycotting elections, liberty would be increased more effectively by those liberty-lovers voting for more liberty.

Your example boycotts are all cases of people exercising real bargaining power, by withholding something the other party wants. Ballot boycotters have no bargaining power against the State, because the State does not want liberty advocates voting anyway. Any signal from the few ballot boycotters is inevitably lost in the overwhelming noise of voter apathy. A much clearer signal can be sent by voting for more liberty. Such an option isn’t necessarily available in every race, but we in the Libertarian Party work hard to provide that option. I’ve spent many hours and thousands of dollars to provide it here in Silicon Valley.

You completely sabotage your argument by saying that State punishment for failing to accept State offers does not make acceptance non-voluntary. This means that anything you do to avoid punishment — paying your taxes, obeying arbitrary traffic rules, showing up for jury duty, etc. — is voluntary and constitutes endorsement of the existence of the state. Your concession here ends the debate.

What’s worse, it sabotages your entire libertarian worldview. You’ve just told aggressors that credible threats of imminent force do not constitute aggression when the threats work, and that aggression only occurs when the threat has to be carried out. Perhaps you mis-spoke in eagerness to echo agorist rhetoric, but the implication of your words couldn’t be clearer. That implication is in a theoretical way even more shocking than your notion that every voter is giving “personal sanction” to your “enslavement” and so is presumably subject to Tim-McVeigh-style lethal self-defense from you. If you don’t think you have the right to attack us voters who you say sanction your enslavement, then I’m curious where you draw your limits on the self-defense rights of you so-called slaves.

When I said that the only alternative to the potential tyranny of the many is the potential tyranny of the few, I was speaking of practical alternatives and not of all logically possible alternatives. Yes, it’s logically possible that David Koresh and Randy Weaver and Ted Kaczynski and their kind could magically win their every confrontation with the State or the Mafia, but it’s also logically possible that you are the last son of Krypton and are impervious to all tyranny. The unfortunate reality is that in every single modern instance of a vacuum in State authority, protection markets have always operated like the Sopranos, and never like an anarcholibertarian fantasy. In the hundreds or thousands of cases of competition among State-ignoring “protection” agencies, there has not been a single instance where the market operated as anarcholibertarian theory predicts. Anarcholibertarian theory regarding defense agencies is one of the most thoroughly refuted hypotheses in all the social sciences.

Regarding rights protection and consent of the governed, see http://libertarianmajority.net/whence-the-authority-of-the-state. It’s just silly to claim that rejection of anarchism implies endorsement of whatever the mob decides to do. That I claim the majority will sometimes adequately protect our rights does not mean I claim that the majority will always adequately protect our rights.

After insulting slaves who died for more freedom, you now insult me by calling me “content” with our level of freedom. I’ll put my record of activism for increased freedom up against yours any day.

When I talk about “the history of our species and our planet”, it’s weak for you to quibble about “eight years ago”. Please read http://knowinghumans.net/2006/07/fear-neophobia-not-police-state.html and http://www.reason.com/news/show/129993.html and then tell me what generation in what non-trivial society has ever been as enduringly free as ours.

Your mousetrap analogy fails, because inventions are non-rivalrous (and even if you’re a believer in intellectual property, you stipulated that you got the mousetrap from the rightful inventor). To make your analogy relevant, the mousetrap would have to be stolen property and you would know it to be such. Stolen property is a “thing”, and you say “things are not evil or good”, but I doubt you would say it’s moral to accept what you know to be stolen property — e.g. a stolen Domino’s pizza. So I repeat my question: how does your use of the State’s allegedly-theft-financed infrastructure — streets, water, sewage, power, police protection, justice, etc. — not constitute endorsement of the State’s existence under your theory that “when you use something, you validate it, you give it your personal sanction”?

When I said “your views are evolving rapidly”, I meant your views on political strategy — the very topic of this conversation about voting strategy. In the last year or so your preferred political strategy has gone IIRC from LP to BTP back to LP and now to agorist, and sometime in there you were talking about joining the GOP to work with Paulistas. For your age I had no knowledge except your photo, so me saying I infer you are “young” is actually a compliment. So please have the courtesy to find out what I mean when you’re not sure, instead of just assuming that I’m being rude (as you mistakenly did earlier when you called my phrase “ideological purity” a “smear”).

P.S. Note that all my arguments here are in a way an admission against interest. Making the LP more effective might get a lot easier if the rest of the LP’s anarchists gave up on politics. It would be amusing to see anarchists like Mary Ruwart and Susan Hogarth have to defend themselves from your charge that they are giving personal sanction to your enslavement. I suppose they could say that until recently you were sanctioning it too, and that you may be engaging in contract fraud by now trying to back out of the deal you had agreed to earlier. If voting expresses consent, for how many minutes or decades does the consent last?

Before you follow Konkin all the way over the cliff, I wonder if you noticed his position against all forms of punishment that don’t constitute pure restitution (including interest and prosecution costs). This is even farther ’round the bend than Ruwart’s position, which I discuss at http://libertarianintelligence.com/2008/05/checkbook-justice-in-ruwarchistan.html.

A long and rather pretentious commentary on some arguments, including ones that don’t seem to be present, is made above and includes information on driver licenses, etc.

As a sovereign individual, I do not need permission to own property, to travel by means of my choice, to engage in sexual liaison with one or more other people. I think the best approach is to give nothing to the state and take nothing from it. Etienne de la Boetie does not advocate attacking the state, so much as withdrawing from it. Let it topple on its own, just don’t do anything to support it.

However, arguably, a license tag on the back of the car and a driver license in the wallet decrease enormously the nature and extent of the delay and conflict inherent in the presence of uniformed highway men who impede the flow of commerce and traffic. One could argue that getting a license plate is a defensive move to pre-empt a long boring roadside conversation, or a trip to the lair of the robbers (police station, whatever).

One could also look at the explicit language. For a passport, the government bothers to establish a citizenship oath as part of the documentation. So, if you get a passport, you are making an agreement that has the form of consenting to be governed. The driver license does not have that form, in states where I’ve had one. It bears my signature, but doesn’t say that I’m agreeing to anything. Arguably, the signature, like the photograph, is a way of identifying that it is me.

The marriage license does have the form of a contract and again it doesn’t say dick about consenting to be governed. You should read one some time. There are all kinds of things implied about treating with the state to get a license, just as there are all kinds of preachers who won’t perform an unlicensed ceremony. Reading into the existence of a marriage license a great deal of consent to be governed seems unworkable.

For a thorough review of how the constitution is not a contract, at least not one involving individuals (it is arguably a compact among the several states), see Lysander Spooner “The Constitution of No Authority” in “No Treason.” I think it is number 6 – like “The Prisoner” on that campy British spy show.

Consent to be governed isn’t on any ballot I’ve ever filled out, so your discussion of marriage and driver’s licenses backs up my argument.

That not every vote — especially every write-in vote — is properly counted does not mean that the overwhelming majority of votes are not properly counted. It would be conveniently easy to believe that the State has to systematically mis-count election results in order to keep us liberty-lovers from the victories we otherwise would/could earn. The related talk of “delusion” here seems ironic.

I’m curious what precisely makes my arguments above “pretentious”. (I’ve long since learned that I never get specific answers when I question accusations of this facile sort, but I always go through the motion of asking how I could have phrased what I had to say in a way that couldn’t arbitrarily be given the label in question.)

Also, on the pretentiousness vibe, which is intended to be a comment directed at your arguments, not at you, I find your use of other web sites as a sort of “Oh, I don’t have to bother going over my reasons and applying them to what was specifically said here,” approach. This is mildly irritating, like other types of pretentious behavior, because it assumes an eagerness on the part of your reader to go look through pages and pages of slightly relevant material somewhere else. You aren’t more important than the other people here, so you shouldn’t pretend authority to send us off to do research and read what you’ve written elsewhere. If you have something to say that was said somewhere else, take the time to copy and paste. This seems like a simple enough courtesy.

It is clever of you to ignore the statement I made about political interest groups involved in counting votes engaging in some vote fraud in some elections at the margin. Evidently you now want me to ignore your comments. I have won this point. Extensive documentation shows that various elections in counties such as Cook County Illinois have been deliberately miscounted. Because you offer no evidence that all elections are without fraud, your game theory ideas have no merit. You can’t win a rigged game, even if it is only rigged some of the time.

Your arguments are indeed naive and childish, yes. Your blind trust in vote counters does appear to be a signature weakness in your argument, yes. Perhaps you would rather feel insulted than fix your argument, which is a weak excuse for a rebuttal.

You are, of course, welcome to use your time to vote. It is your time. Your assertion that I have to meet some absurd standard to prove that vote fraud is enough to dissuade you from voting is silly. All I have to demonstrate is that you can’t win a rigged game. Which, above, I’ve done.

You asked for elaboration on my concern that your analysis was verbose and pretentious. So, I complied with your request. Instead of choosing to thank me for responding to your request, you insult me by saying that I shouldn’t offer a lecture on pretentiousness. So, when you make requests, my response will be to ignore them. Similarly, I did not first use the Latin phrase for “silence implies consent.” Mr. John Famularo did so, though his declension was mistaken, I believe. I offered a review of the Roman legal passages involved in “who is silent” to suggest that he had the wrong end of the tool in that case.

There is an obvious tactic which suggests itself from your thought that no one is eager to read what you write. Instead of writing comments, you could remain silent. From his statements above, I feel sure that George Donnelly would not assume you were consenting to anything by remaining silent. There is the possibility that Mr. Famularo would suppose your silence implied some sort of assent, though without showing your interest being at stake, I’m not sure how he could establish such a supposition.

Are you at all familiar with Michael van Notten’s work on a theory of justice?

You expressed curiosity on what made me suppose your comments were pretentious. I responded. You don’t like my response, which is fine. I won’t make this error of supposing that you would be gracious about a response to your request for more information again. You are not gracious.

I did not choose to police your comments. I responded politely to your request for more information. Instead of being gracious, you have been churlish. One can only suppose that this represents some sort of reaction like you imagine about intimidation or magnanimity. I think the idea that you hold, that everyone you are corresponding with is beneath your intellect, oozes out of ever paragraph of your very pretentious posts.

I have now gone out of my way to elaborate on my response to your complaint about my response to your request for more details on my reaction to your post. Enough. I shall not burden our host by further responding to you, ever again.

“John Galt”, you write “Because you offer no evidence that all elections are without fraud, your game theory ideas have no merit.” The structure of your argument is that the existence of vote-counting fraud any time any place makes all voting futile. That argument needs no further rebuttal beyond this restatement of it, as the fallacy of the excluded middle here is obvious.

Thanks for not responding to my point about polling. Instead, you repeat your name-calling mantra about my “childish” “blind trust in vote counters”, unaware that even without polling data I was able to publicly predict the D, R, and LP vote percentages in my last two races for Congress to within 2 percentage points for each candidate. I suppose the “vote counters” must have worked overtime to ensure that the vote totals came out close to what I predicted, so as to keep me unaware of the conspiracy that only someone as boldly clear-eyed as you can see. Ah, if only you hadn’t sworn off further discussion, you might reveal that I also have a childish blind trust in all of America’s polling firms, each of which is in fact part of the Vast Vote-Counting Conspiracy. :-)

I’m not familiar with van Notten’s theory of justice, at least by that name. I was about to ask you to compare it to Ruwart’s take on justice as explicated by her quotes assembled in my blog posting that I linked to above. Then I remembered that it’s pretentious to expect people to click a link if a topic interests them, as opposed to expecting them to hunt down primary source material based on a dropped name. :-)

I’ll state my request for the third time: “how could I have phrased what I had to say in a way that couldn’t arbitrarily be called ‘pretentious’ or some other name?” You didn’t answer this question about my “erudite statements”, nor did you even give any clue about what statements of mine you were referring to. Thus your only response to my request to troubleshoot my alleged “pretentiousness” was to complain how I divided and distributed my words. Pardon me for not lavishing you with thanks for such an unsatisfying response to my request — even as I paid your response the respect of systematically addressing every element of it.

Your wounded psychologizing about me was an intriguing tease the first time, a predictable (and predicted) disappointment the second time, and is now just tedious. How delicious it is that someone calling himself “John Galt” should whine that his interlocutor has taken insufficient care to protect Mr. Galt’s ego from the offensive spectacle of the other party intelligently answering Galt’s criticisms of his statements. :-) You just broke my irony meter.

I know you’ve sworn off all further responses to me, but just for the record, I remain open to being shown how some paragraph of mine above could be rewritten to make the same points in the same amount of space while somehow also immunizing it from this vacuous charge that it “oozes” the idea “that everyone you are corresponding with is beneath your intellect”. That’s an interesting induction given that your sample size here was 1: George. I doubt seriously that you’re very familiar with my correspondence — and in particular my recent correspondence with George.

Brian the following quote from your posting is erroneous information as are some of your other arguments. “The unfortunate reality is that in every single modern instance of a vacuum in State authority, protection markets have always operated like the Sopranos, and never like an anarcholibertarian fantasy.” Read the “Voluntary City” by the Independence Institute and “Anarchy and the Law” both of which refute your lack of historical research. It seems to me the State appears to create more violence by placing layer upon layer of law which allows the government thugs to continually extract more and more money in various manners from the Citizens until one day either the system implodes or there is civil war or both. The fallacy appears to be in your theory that “Honest Citizens” will be administering the government’s operations and propaganda. There are few Ron Paul’s in government and you saw and read what they did to him. Not one politician working on our so-called bailout plan is even discussing the implementation of honest money, as required by our very Constitution.

First off, welcome aboard! You will find that announcing yourself as an anarchist produces the most amazing variety denouncements of anarchism, very few of them well thought out, but arguing with the denouncers is generally a waste of time.

The reason is that so many people are emotionally wedded to the state that they cannot imagine a society without a state, and if you try to describe one, they will insist that there really is a state in what you’re describing.

If you’re interested in reading a description of an anarchist society, check out L. Neil Smiths “The Probability Broach”.

I don’t believe the LP pledge prevents anyone from being involved in a revolution. The government has initiated force against all of its citizens, merely the threat of incarceration for tax evasion is an initiation of force (given that its credible).

Thus, any violent act in response is self defense. Not that a violent revolution is practical or wise…. but if you want to be a member of the LP, do so, you aren’t compromising and principles in so doing.

I think the FSP is the group you need to quit first though, as their plan is to move to a state and beg the government to let them be free.

Anyway, good luck and best wishes, and don’t listen to the statists, which, as an anarchist, you’ll start finding coming out of the woodwork.

As an objectivist, I find Atlas Shrugged to be a great argument for anarchism– after all, how can you live under a government and not be living for the sake of another? I find Rand’s denouncement of anarchism to be very illuminating in just how Objectivism actually really supports anarchism….. to the point that I think you cannot be an objectivist without being an anarchist. (course telling randians that makes their heads explode.)

Have fun!

The Probability Broach is a very interesting book. If you don’t want to read it in book form, it is available at bigheadpress.com as a graphic novel, free. Pretty easy on the eyes, too. You can follow L. Neil’s other writing at his Libertarian Enterprise site, updated about weekly, ncc-1776.org. Not entirely anarchist, but many people who write for him are. I especially like Kent McManigal and Dennis Wilson.

It is always interesting how both so called conservatives and the new progressive movement believe that free enterprise works better with most things yet when it comes to controlling law, legislation and enforcement, government does a great and irreplaceable job. Even with the constant reinforcement that politics, government run law enforcement and the justice systems are extremely corrupt and ineffective, people don’t comprehend how people would voluntarily select individuals and groups they trust at providing those services, even though they do it in almost every other aspect of their lives. I generally believe that partly, it is the lack of belief that there is an alternative, and therefore the common man does not know to take the initiative. Government also promotes authoritarianism through the press and education that allows those protected by government to take control of these services. The use of fines and incarceration of those that resist probably doesn’t’ help either. Religion has also contributed for a very long time, as a means of authoritarian indoctrination that assists in castrating the common man into believing that they cannot take control of their own life and judgments and therefore must be ruled by other. Because god says so and is the very reason our founding father separated church and state.

George,

So you’ve become an anarchist. Do you feel more excited and motivated to spread liberty now? Do you feel more part of a community? Has it changed your day-to-day life?

You write, “Ironically it was my involvement in the Libertarian Party – a group of liberty activists who believe in reforming government – that pushed me over the chasm to anarchism. My hopes were high when I joined the LP, but the reality is devastating. The LPers I identify with – the more radical ones – are laboring under a contradiction. They ostensibly pursue an electoral path to liberty, but refuse to do the organizational work necessary to be effective.”

I want to applaud you for publishing a “to-do” list on integrating your new ideas into your life. Yet I can’t help noticing that aside from doing more reading on anarchy, only one item on the list is a positive or affirmative action (as opposed to a cessation, withdrawal, etc.), and it is expressed very vaguely:

“Search for ways to work for greater liberty, without supporting governments.”

I will be interested to hear what fruits your search produces. In particular, please let me know if/when you find a group of people working for freedom while eschewing electoral politics who are doing more of the organizational work necessary to be effective than are radical Libertarians in the LP, and doing it in a way that is based more on compassion (helping liberate others from government oppression) than selfishness, doesn’t compromise their principles, and holds the possibility of leading to a mass movement. I’m not just saying this as a rhetorical point — if you find such a group, I’d really like to know about it.

For myself at present, I prefer the real if nascent community to be found in Libertarian Party circles, however flawed and not fully realized it may be, to an alternative that does not seem to have manifested itself at all.
We need a sense of community, solidarity, dare-I-say *spirituality*, of working together for a higher purpose.

I don’t think pure self interest is a strong enough organizing principle on which to build a movement, because (1) it does not foster a spirit of cooperation and working together to achieve goals, (2) it is viewed highly negatively by society at large, and (3) it is not sufficiently inspirational to attract enough of the young, idealistic people needed to build a strong movement. Ayn Rand, through her brilliant writing, probably did as much as could be done to reclaim the concept of selfishness and build a mass movement based on self-interest, but I think objectivism as an organizing principle for (r)evolutionary change is inherently limiting.

Ironically, I think the main advantages of anarchy over limited government are those which libertarian anarchists seem to have barely noticed. Anarchism has a powerful arsenal of symbolism, cultural cachet via “The Matrix,” Emma Goldman, etc., an inherent radical appeal, a historical pedigree of people who fought for freedom in very bottom-up ways, the punk DIY ethic, and a degree of “street cred” that outstrips by light years anything possessed by advocates of limited government.

I would say to any libertarians who declare themselves anarchists: Don the trappings that the legacy of anarchism has afforded you, make them yours, and run with them!

Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))

“Imagine for a moment marching up a hill, lit only by starlight and a distant bonfire on a hot July night in August, in Andalucia, near the very tip of southern Spain. Looking at the stars you point out the red twinkle of Mars to the comrade whose arm you entwine. She comes from the opposite end of Europe. Behind you lies an agriculture estate, left derelict by its owner but now seized by agricultural workers. Behind you hundreds of comrades queue to try and ford the shallow river in the dark. On either side olive grooves stretch up the hills in neat rows, the red soil now dark and cool.

Someone on the road ahead starts singing ‘A Las Barricadas’ (To the Barricades) in Spanish, slowly this is taken up by others behind and ahead, in Italian, Turkish and other languages, sometimes just hummed or whistled by those who don’t know the words. The Spanish version is familiar to me from a scratchy recording an Italian comrade passed on to me on tape. The original recording is of 500,000 people singing this working class anthem at a rally of the anarchist CNT in Barcelona, July 1936, days after the revolution there.

Those on this road have gathered from all over the world, over 50 countries in all. They have temporarily left the struggles in their own countries to come here to dream of a new reality together. Here the weather beaten features of a male campesino from Brazil, are found beside the sunburned features of an 18 year old female squatter from Berlin. Do you feel you are imagining something impossible, something from a Hollywood blockbuster or the past? Then add one more detail, a gasp goes up from those on the road for overhead a shooting star briefly appears. Were it not for the collective gasp each of us may have imagined this was a vision we alone were seeing. But no, we look around and realise we are marching, seeing and dreaming together.

In our modern world The Power tells us such dreams are no longer possible. History has ended, there is no dream just the reality of alienation, work and obedience. Yet the scene above is not from a film or from a history book, rather it took place on the evening of August the 2nd 1997. This was the ‘Second encounter for Humanity and against Neoliberalism’. I could describe it in cold, political terms alone but this would miss the ‘for humanity’ part and in truth for every day we discussed organising ‘against neoliberalism’ we spent another ‘for humanity’.”

-Andrew Flood (Irish left-anarchist – http://struggle.ws/andrew.html)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One of the areas of activity you might wish to explore is encryption. Public key cryptography uses various open source algorithms. Cryptographers, mostly people really good at math, have learned over time that secret codes are very vulnerable to attacks which don’t get fixed because, well, they were secret. And secretly attacked, very often, by people who weren’t telling. Open source crypto has been much, much more effective.

Lately, it is being developed into VOIP phone services (unlike Skype which uses a proprietary encryption scheme – a black box which you might be able to trust, or not) and payment systems. Pecunix.com for example lets you upload a GPG key to their server, and all your payment messages are encrypted to that key. Loom.cc has developed a nifty system for secure information transfer, including encrypted nodes. And a number of developers have implemented successful digital bearer instruments. One of these is eCache.

In combination, these ideas represent the ability to send and receive information and transfer value entirely privately. If the governments of the world cannot detect a transaction, they cannot regulate it, prohibit, or tax it.

Have you read J. Neil Schulman’s book _Alongside Night_? It is 30 years old this year. I recently learned that he’s shopping a screenplay treatment he did of the book to make it into a film. Exciting times.

Stopping by cuz a buddy pointed out this post and while I’ve not read all the comments (and will be traveling this weekend), I wanted to say congrats to Donnelly!

Also, No state will ever be overthrown through boycott (i.e. personal secession).

You probably need to go read a thinker like de la Boetie. Here’s a linkie thingie to get you started: http://tmh.floonet.net/articles/laboetie.html

And, believe it or not, there were many gay people who gave not a whit about Prop 8. They think the state shouldn’t regulate marriage at all.

I’ll be back on Monday to check in for your responses.

Really off the subject but quite exciting – It will be very interesting to see if the statist social engineers will allow our endeavor to fit into their scheme. A little over two years ago I invented a low tech flipping panel wind and water turbine (see video on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NTbAz9GyHw
I showed it to a group of Ex-Pratt and Whitney engineers about a year ago, one being a PhD in Fluids and the others jet engine turbine guys and they added some brilliant but low tech ideas to the system to increase it cost efficiency. They just finalized the first estimated cost analysis and although we are going to surely tighten these costs up as full engineering of the various component are completed, the number are more extrodianry than I ever thought. Engineers generally are of a conservative nature and the estimates in may opinion reflects that. How does $0.0303 re kW/hr. sound. That’s installed with a DC cable to the shoreline with a life expectancy of 16 years. I’m not an engineer but because of the low tech aspects of the design, everything from a technology standpoint has already been done, so only things such as how to best deploy and remove the system for scheduled maintanence, etc. are still yet to be specifically determined. We had a submarine electronics expert in their last week picking his brain and quite honestly some of the jargone was over my head as they bonced around various ideas to most cost effectively make the system. The system, even “without” tax incentives as are provided to windpower and other alternatives, will be able to compete head to head with fossil and nuclear in those locations that have a relatively fast ocean current like the Florida Gulfstream. How about them apples!!!!

I came to Anarchy almost the same way. It’s heartening to hear that there’s others out there.

As long as legalized force, i.e. power can be gained through some sort of political method(s) there will be those who vie for that power. Couple those who can manipulate those in power through economic means and you have government as we know it today and throughout most of history. The power to tax becomes the means for those who govern to benefit what should be in the best interest of the majority, but what in reallty, is their own best interest. We want to beleive that such as system will provide a means to a peaceful and prosperous society but history has not shown that to be the case. The solution which history has been shown to work at various levels is less govenement, thereby eliminating those with monetary power the ability to gain legal power. Less taxation allows the most fair playing field of competition and allows more individuals the ability to determine their own consumption and investment rather than the political systems constant manipulations, compromise and redistribution of wealth for their special interest. We are surely headed down the wrong path and many will suffer the consequences. Government is an expence and thinking that increasing spending on expences will create prosperity is as Winston Churchhill stated, “trying to stand in a bucket and lift youself up by the handle.” It did not work during the 1st Depression and it surely will not work this time either, as our society is even less prepared for what is going to occur.

Brian,

Of course some believers in limited government do not support coercive taxation for *any* reason. Your taxation of “public bads (i.e., monopolizing, consuming, polluting, or congesting the commons)” sounds like a formula for Leviathan.

There are *significant* differences between jury-awarded fines and taxation. Fines imposed by juries result from specific complaints of aggression. They are imposed at the conclusion of a court process in which defendants are guaranteed to be heard in a carefully proscribed procedure, whereas legislatures may pass taxes in a purely political fashion without ever listening to those who are to be taxed. Jury fines do not set up schemes for collection of payments in perpetuity. Jurors are not members of an entrenched government class, but are chosen randomly from the populace for one-time duty. Jury fines are typically imposed on single defendants, or sometimes a small group of defendants, whereas taxes are typically levied on a large cross-section of industry or the population.

Minarchists (a term I dislike, but we seem to lack a suitable replacement) may consider some, though probably not all, of what falls under your four categories to be aggression (*breathing* is technically consumption of the commons — do you assert that this activity should be taxed?). Some may support the concept of class-action fines, just as some (like yourself) support various types of coercive taxation. Of course there is some point beyond which a person’s support for government would render the label “minarchist” or “supporter of limited government” inaccurate, but I’m not prepared to say exactly where that point is. I do think that the more government a person favors, the less libertarian his or her views.

I don’t mind admitting that the amount of government George Donnelly favors (none) makes his views more libertarian than mine. I believe abolition of government is the libertarian ideal; the only reason I don’t advocate it is because I’m afraid it would not be sustainable. Perhaps after a period of truly limited government, humanity will reach a point where anarchy can be safely allowed without fear that it will soon revert to tyranny.

I’m not sure what you believe is proved by asserting that no Leviathan has ever been maintained by taxing only the monopolizing, consuming, pollution, or congestion of the commons. Has any Leviathan ever been maintained by taxing *only* the consumption of drugs? No. But a government which taxes drug use is likely to exceed its proper scope in lots of other ways as well, and I think this would likewise be true for a government that imposes coercive taxation of any kind. When one embraces legal aggression, an important line is crossed. If involuntarily collected moneys are being taken as penalties for aggression, then their collection is not itself aggression, and they should be called fines rather than taxes to avoid confusion.

I don’t believe what you suggest qualifies as a “starvation diet.” Over time, a “starvation diet” starves the dieter. Your use of this term in the context of government use of resources implies that your intended result is the starvation and death of government, i.e. anarchy.

Starchild, class action settlements most assuredly set up permanent policies. I stipulated that my “taxes” are equivalent to class action fines in terms of who they reach and how much they charge. I further stipulate that my “taxes” would be court-contestable (with loser paying court costs), just as class action settlements are. The only distinction I leave you is in the process by which the fine/tax is imposed, and not in its effects. If it’s not aggression when a jury does it, then it’s not aggression when a legislature does it.

I don’t think default contestable fines (i.e. “taxes”) on prima facie aggression are themselves aggression. If you’re going to rule out all use of force in any situation in which the target might eventually be able to prove his innocence, then you’re ruling out way more than just taxes. You’re also ruling out most judicial processes, and indeed almost anything that isn’t immediate bodily self-defense.

Breathing is not aggression. The exact language in my Free Earth Manifesto is: “Production of property via extraction of natural resources from a community commons should require a fee to the community proportional to the decrease in ability of that commons to sustainably support such extraction.”

My point about Leviathan was to distinguish Skip’s taxation formula from my own. Skip’s formula is used by every government; mine is used by none. George’s attempted point was that geominarchism is on a slippery slope to Leviathan. His point was so ahistorical that it may not have even registered on you.

“Starvation diet” was a metaphorical name for a diet that makes you lose more than 80% of your weight. Such a diet nearly always kills a human, but an 80% cut doesn’t have to kill a government.

I don’t agree that anarchists are the most libertarian of us, for reasons I enumerate at http://libertarianintelligence.com/2008/11/none-of-many-zaps-define-libertarianism.html.

Skip, if you think I don’t know enough economics, then check out my blog postings on that subject: http://knowinghumans.net/search/label/Economics. Or visit LPplatform-discuss and do searches like

Kuznets curves
free rider problem
club goods
Tiebout sorting
Pigovian taxes
Nash-Cournot equilibrium
Kaldor-Hicks efficiency
moral hazard
negative externalities
natural monopoly
public choice theory
Pareto optimality
Prisoner’s Dilemma
Allais paradox
Coase theorem
asymmetric information
Arrow’s theorem

Brian, them how can you argue statist positions? Force is statism, not self defense. How are you going to pay for the legislature? If they work for free them it could be more like a court, where the loser could pay. But would you trust any legislature unless it was a very high level of plurality like say 75% and above. I cannot trust a simple majority because I have seen too many injustices come from that system. A majority of the legislative bodies are made up of attorneys whom appear to be sociopaths, caring about winning rather than truth, justice and the rule of law. It takes money to have legislative bodies and that must come from coerced taxation and then they historically use their power and money to usurp individual rights. If they were protecting our rights it would be great, but that is obviously not the results. You don’t really need a legislative body to protect individual rights; you need a good court system, and not one that is full of graft, extortion, cronyism and protectionism under a monopolistic statist authority. Government judicial systems have proven to be poor final arbiters leaving the only alternative of the competitive markets to choose the best arbiters. People if knowledgeable will choose arbitration/mediation or something like the law merchant over a poorly administered government justice system. They still use, for instance “In propria persona” instead of “In proper person” to achieve their cartelist BAR status. Half the briefs are full of the dead language of Latin when there are plenty of modern English terms and phrases that say the same thing. If people voted their conscience instead of their pocketbook, a majority rule might be effective, assuming and that is a big assumption, that they are knowledgeable in the various sciences necessary to make a rational and reasonable decisions that would be in the best interest of the majority. It is too easy to vote for the monies of the treasury to be spent in the capacity that benefits the representative voters instead of the majority. How may school teachers would vote for a decrease in education spending or how many military contractors do you think vote for candidates would want to reduce military spending? People sadly do not vote for what is in the best interest of the majority and instead look at government as a means to a personal benefit. How many companies are lining up for the $800 +/- Billion stimulus package and of cause the various state and Federal bureaucracies will get their cut leaving Main Street to ride the unemployment train to nowhere. It is truly a sad day for the heart and soul of the American private sector worker bludgeons by over taxation, regulation and a ruling elite redistributing the wealth to themselves.

Skip, I’ll turn your question around: if you know all the economics I cite at e.g. http://knowinghumans.net/2008/11/samuelsons-theory-of-public-goods.html, then how can you argue for anarchist positions? :-) Seriously, I suspect that I know the arguments for libertarian anarchism better than you know the arguments for libertarian minarchism.

Answering your questions on education: 1) Both/either. 2) Apart from a geolibertarian citizen’s dividend, I don’t think it should.

If (as Skip seems to claim) even taxes on aggression (e.g. pollution) lead to fascism, then singling out one tax to fight makes very little sense. Saying you want to fight one kind of tax, but announcing unilateral political disarmament while doing so, makes even less sense.

You need not give up any rights to “property or happiness” to advocate a geominarchist state — unless, of course, you think that the commons is your property, or that your happiness consists in polluting it. Geominarchism solves two problems that no other school of libertarianism even claims to solve: http://knowinghumans.net/2008/04/geolibertarianism-squares-two-circles.html

Skip, I most certainly do not “assume that the only way to fight pollution is through some sort of government action”. My actual position differs from your straw man, and is set forth at http://libertarianmajority.net/can-torts-police-all-negative-externalities.

I never said we can’t dismantle one tax at a time. Instead, I just pointed out that this (untenable) assertion is a corollary of your apparent belief that restricting taxation to just aggression (e.g. pollution) would inevitably lead back to Leviathan/fascism. If instead you now say that it’s possible within the political framework to make significant and enduring inroads against taxation, then I welcome your agreement with me.

I never said that the optimal level of pollution is zero. That is yet another straw man.

Ron Paul’s “Revolution” was effectively one man running in one race in one year. The existence of the LP did not hinder Paul’s candidacy, and in many ways made that candidacy possible. Meanwhile, the idea of freedom is offered to millions of voters by hundreds of Libertarian candidates in every election year — even the years when no Ron Paul is running. As long as the State allows us to organize a freedom party that advocates against its own injustices, the freedom movement would be foolish not to take that opportunity. I wish all the best for Ron Paul and his Campaign For Liberty, but I’m not willing to bet that candidates running under the C4L (or any other non-LP freedom-oriented) banner will get more votes and media exposure than the LP in 2012 and 2016. Are you? Most kinds of political activism aren’t fungible zero-sum kinds of effort, and the ones that are point to the wisdom of having precisely one freedom party: http://libertarianintelligence.com/2008/09/why-multiple-freedom-parties-is-dumb.html