Politics is an immoral dead-end

[d_goddard]

All I will say on this subject is that if you have never made an honest effort to just sit down and chat with the more liberty-minded State Reps in New Hampshire, you're quite frankly talking out of your ass about what can and cannot be achieved by political ends.


Love,
an AnCap

[Rodinia]

And who do you suppose will protect that "right" for you when out of the inevitably of human nature, along comes a individual hell bent on being your ruler?

Ever hear the expression 'freedom is not free'?

Freedom most definitely is free.  It is my and every person's right.

[Lloyd Danforth]

1. You let slip something very important here: elections--all of them--end with someone in possession of power over others.  And if you vote, or otherwise participate, you will have been a party to this evil.

2. Any libertarian worth his or her salt is an anarchist.  There is no way around it.

3. Again, by putting thugs (your word) into power, you share in their misdeeds.

4. See above.

5. I advance the cause of liberty by persuading those near and dear to me: my friends, family, and anyone else within earshot.

! & 3 are Bullshit. 2 is accurate. 35 years of experience has shown me that 5 is a joke and if you persue that route alone you will find yourself at 60 no more free than you are now. If you want to change thing thru non political means, I suggest you stop talking and start protesting and getting arrested.  These methods, particularly, when more people start applying them will have a greater multiplying effect than talking to you friends.

[David]

And who do you suppose will protect that "right" for you when out of the inevitably of human nature, along comes a individual hell bent on being your ruler?

Ever hear the expression 'freedom is not free'?

Freedom most definitely is free.  It is my and every person's right.

You deal with it the same way you deal with any de-legitimized group of violence.  Carefully, decentralized, and with firepower.  There will be no 'brady bill', or gun bans.  Switzerland is not in the middle of a nest of violent nations and still somewhat free because of its mighty national army or because they say 'pretty please with sugar on top of it'.  They have choosen to protect themselves.  They can be attacked, but never occupied.  The Iraqi insurgency seems to be doing a fine job (bloody as it is  ) of resisting the occupation.

[Rocketman]

What is the next step to make state-run institutions obsolete?

Civilization, or society, precedes the State.  State-run institutions, therefore, are already obsolete.  Our job is to remind people of that fact.

"Politics" also precedes the state. 

Back to work...

[Vitruvian]

Does this include attending anti-war protests, demanding 911 investigations, or abetting impeachment processes?

I think I (and David) already introduced a definition of politics: "forcing one's own preferences or beliefs on others."  I'm not quite sure what you mean by "abetting impeachment processes," but the first two are non-violent and thus not immoral.

! & 3 are Bullshit. 2 is accurate. 35 years of experience has shown me that 5 is a joke and if you persue that route alone you will find yourself at 60 no more free than you are now. If you want to change thing thru non political means, I suggest you stop talking and start protesting and getting arrested.  These methods, particularly, when more people start applying them will have a greater multiplying effect than talking to you friends.

Why are they bullshit?  Do you disagree that, by electing a certain person to a position of power, you share culpability for their actions?

[Rocketman]

I think I (and David) already introduced a definition of politics: "forcing one's own preferences or beliefs on others." 

A totally bogus definition that undercuts most of your argument.  (I am very involved in politics, and I am not an agent of force.)

[Vitruvian]

A totally bogus definition that undercuts most of your argument.  (I am very involved in politics, and I am not an agent of force.)

Could you be more specific?  This is quite vague.

[Rocketman]

A totally bogus definition that undercuts most of your argument.  (I am very involved in politics, and I am not an agent of force.)

Could you be more specific?  This is quite vague.

Maybe later when I have time... but I only consider this a valid use of my time because I don't want activists and potential activists to be subverted by your arguments against effective political activism.

[Vitruvian]

Maybe later when I have time... but I only consider this a valid use of my time because I don't want activists and potential activists to be subverted by your arguments against effective political activism.

Bad means cannot and will not yield good ends.  By participating in what you call "effective political activism," even if you succeed in winning some token battles, you preserve and indeed strengthen the veil of legitimacy clothing the State.  I fail to understand why so many "libertarians" are seduced by politics, when we above all others should be immune to its charms.

[J’raxis 270145]

Good morning, endless-debate thread!

The phrase create tension between two or more target groups comes from a 1993 book by Paul H. Nitze: Tension Between Opposites: Reflections on the Practices and Theory of Politics. Alleged to be connected with the Council on Foreign Relations, the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University is said to be a spy school.

Creating tension between two or more target groups, perhaps originally a technique more commonly employed for political and military purposes, is often employed as a propaganda tactic. Typical forms this tactic takes include:

• Creating a dummy or shell group that has no purpose except to advocate a view bystanders will see as compatible with that of another target group and which is also opposed to the view of the manipulating group; Then legitimate groups can be drawn into turf wars, be discredited by visible engagement in unappealing confrontations with the new rival, and ultimately discredit their "shared" view - which is of course the opposite of the manipulator's view.
  
  


• Finding legitimate but incompetent or purist advocates of a view roughly compatible with that of another target group, and funding the incompetents or purists or extremists to become the dominant voice on the issue. Not dealing with the issue is thus easy to excuse, as the dominant view is more extreme than the public's own.
  
  


• Dealing directly with moderates and requiring concessions that will be found unacceptable by purists, thus co-opting the middle and alienating purists. If purists can be simultaneously drawn into dummy, shell, incompetent or extreme groups, preferably many of these, then an entire movement can be splintered.

(Source)

That this divisive and energy-sapping thread started up immediately after we've dealt with a spate of the more common form of agents provocateurs (those who try to incite or promote violence in order to discredit us), followed by a sudden influx of new posters whose sole purpose seemed to be to disrupt, confuse, and anger long-time forum posters, is suspicious to say the least.

I have no idea what you're really up to. What I do know is that this thread won't result in any sort of effective activism, only more endless debate and whining that at the end of the day accomplished absolutely nothing. If you're interested in non-political activism, great. Do it. If you're interested in political activism, great. Do that instead. The Free State Movement was intentionally designed as a "big tent" movement to encompass both forms of activism and everything in between. If all you're interested in is arguing with activists who don't employ the same purist methods as yours, please, take it somewhere else, lest people begin to think you're wasting our time on purpose.

[dalebert]

Aside from the occasion quip and a couple of posts in this thread (since it presented the opportunity) I try not to harp on people too hard about choosing to engage in an activity which I consider to be an aggressive act of force, i.e. politics. Unfortunately, the courtesy hasn't saved me from a fair amount of the reciprocal harping. I've been told that if I don't vote, I don't have a right to complain. I've been accused of choosing not to do anything, which is patently not true. I'm just not doing what THEY want me to do. Keep in mind that this is just in a span or a couple of weeks max when people have been pressuring me to make political phone calls, donate to the Ron Paul campaign, etc.

The reason we're in NH is to attempt some things that have never been done before because previous attempts have been failures. Some of us are just taking that a step further. I believe we're right but I'll try not to be too preachy about it.

BTW, if you want to know what sparked this thread, listen to the last 5 or 10 minutes of last night's (11/12/07) FTL broadcast available for download at http://freetalklive.com. Mark and Ian were talking about the two types of activism and Mark implied that the a-political types should get involved in the Ron Paul campaign just to be supportive of the political types. I called in and was totally caught off guard because I didn't realize the show was about to end and I didn't expect to be on the air IMMEDIATELY. My point was that some of us are morally opposed to that activity and it's wrong to push people into an activity that they're morally opposed to. I think that sort of peer pressure is just as heavy-handed as this thread. Eric (Vitruvian) was sitting right there as I called in and I think he felt frustrated that we didn't get to make our point. That's not Mark and Ian's fault, of course. That was just bad timing, but the frustration was created none the less and Eric had to vent somewhere.

To be clear, I wasn't calling in to say "Mark, you are engaging in evil political activities and you are going to Libertarian Hell!" All I was trying to do was get him to stop pressuring us to engage in an activity that WE believe is immoral. Think of the analogy of passive vs. active rights. I shouldn't have to explain that to anyone here.

[Nat F]

I think I (and David) already introduced a definition of politics: "forcing one's own preferences or beliefs on others."  I'm not quite sure what you mean by "abetting impeachment processes," but the first two are non-violent and thus not immoral.

Have you removed yourself from the power sphere of government yet?  If the government and political process is force and violence directed against you then how have you gone about defending yourself from it?  Do you believe in self defense or are you a pacifist?

I believe in self defense and the use of force continuum as applied to my own self defense.  If you live within a governments sphere of control and believe in self defense you have to defend yourself from it's abusive control.  Your options to do so are to leave the governments area of control (the town, the state, the country, the united nations, whatever) or to defend yourself in place (ala the castle doctrine).  In order to defend yourself in place you need to make use of every tool made available to you that continues to allow you to exist and defend yourself (and your family).  If you escalate the violence then you run the risk of a massively superior government based force squashing you and eliminating your ability to live peacefully and provide for yourself and your family.

That means you need to resist without escalating the violence (in the eyes of the government).  The options available to you are civil disobedience and the political process.  Using one of these tools without using the other is to not effectively defending yourself.  In fact your use of both needs to weighed against the repercussions of using each.  If your act of civil disobedience will cause you to be unable to protect the lives of your family then you need to weigh each action and the likely response.  If voting against the ruling power will cause that power to be used against you to destroy your life then you also need to decide which is better.

In short if the political process is "violence" being used against you then you can defend yourself from that violence in an equal and appropriate manner.  If a pure anarchist state existed and you attempted to initiate the political process to create government then you would be initiating violence, but until the "violence" of the state is gone you are defending yourself by participating, not initiating force.

-Nat

[dalebert]

I have no idea what you're really up to. What I do know is that this thread won't result in any sort of effective activism, only more endless debate and whining that at the end of the day accomplished absolutely nothing. If you're interested in non-political activism, great. Do it. If you're interested in political activism, great. Do that instead. The Free State Movement was intentionally designed as a "big tent" movement to encompass both forms of activism and everything in between. If all you're interested in is arguing with activists who don't employ the same purist methods as yours, please, take it somewhere else, lest people begin to think you're wasting our time on purpose.

It's funny that this was being posted at the same time as my last post and i got that warning msg again because it seems like I'm responding to this. Just a coincidence. I'm going to have to come to Eric's defense here. He's not a troll. I know him personally. You guys know me personally. I'm telling you he's a good guy. This thread probably does belong in the endless debate section, but Eric is definitely not a "do nothing" kind of guy. He's a very young, very principled, some would say too idealistic (but not me, I'm frequently accused of the same) guy who took a year out of school to check out the Free State Project.

[Vitruvian]

In short if the political process is "violence" being used against you then you can defend yourself from that violence in an equal and appropriate manner.  If a pure anarchist state existed and you attempted to initiate the political process to create government then you would be initiating violence, but until the "violence" of the state is gone you are defending yourself by participating, not initiating force.

Defending yourself from whom?  Participating in politics does nothing to ameliorate the original crime against you.

It's funny that this was being posted at the same time as my last post and i got that warning msg again because it seems like I'm responding to this. Just a coincidence. I'm going to have to come to Eric's defense here. He's not a troll. I know him personally. You guys know me personally. I'm telling you he's a good guy. This thread probably does belong in the endless debate section, but Eric is definitely not a "do nothing" kind of guy. He's a very young, very principled, some would say too idealistic (but not me, I'm frequently accused of the same) guy who took a year out of school to check out the Free State Project.

Thank you, Dale.