Politics is an immoral dead-end

[MaineShark]

You are clinically diagnosing one of my friends as a megalomaniac? Do you need a license for that?

No, because I'm an anarchist.  I don't "need" a license to do anything.

Joe

[jaqeboy]

You are clinically diagnosing one of my friends as a megalomaniac? Do you need a license for that?

Megalomaniacs don't need licenses to call other people megalomaniacs - that's part of their "power."

[J’raxis 270145]

OK.  I've had enough.  Welcome to my ignore list, MaineShark!  I was wondering who would be the first.

Oh, the horrors.

Pwned.

Joe, if you stop by Murphy's next Tuesday, I owe you a beer.

[J’raxis 270145]

Yes.  Moreover, seeing/hearing "libertarians" defending the State political apparatus turns my stomach and sets my blood boiling.

I'm not defending the system. I'm simply using it.

He's a religious zealot and a statist.

Actually I am an atheist and an anarchist.  You're 0 for 2.

You're a religious zealot. Your brand of anarchism is your religion.

(Atheism is not the opposite of religion, it's the opposite of theism. There are many actual atheist religions, Buddhism probably being the most popular one.)

[J’raxis 270145]

I don't want to preach endlessly to other FSPers or get personal about it or disrupt their political activities. However, if FSPers keep pressuring me to violate my principles, they put me in a position of having to repeatedly remind them that they're asking me to do something that I personally find increasingly... distasteful (I'm using soft words here for tact).

This.

[J’raxis 270145]

So you basically came here with the explicit intention of causing a schism in our movement.

... actually some of us are on a collision course to break up "our" movement.
We are trying to strike at the root of this evil government .... sparks will fly ... and people will have to choose sides. Are you going to use social means or political ones?

What about using both? Some people seem to be most effective using social means, some political, and some use one to lead into the other (e.g., the manicurist protest I keep bringing up, which was used to push through incremental changes to the law).

I don't see this as an issue of "sides," refuse to choose sides in such a debate, and the only people whom I will side against are the ones insisting on binary logic such as this.

I want to get along with everyone possible, but I have to not cooperate with wrong institutions, so that will put me at odds with some people every so often.

People on the political side who mock or denigrate the way you, Lauren, Dale, &c., deal with "wrong institutions" are, to me, behaving no better than Vitruvian deriding people working through the political system. So far, I haven't had to get into an argument like this thread with them, though.

Eric might be longwinded and willing to debate .... but you can avoid this topic with ease. As long as he is not causing too many problems, he will have room to voice his ideas on this forum.

This is why Eric's sudden interest in dissuading all us political-action types is a problem:—

aren't people in Manch trying hard to take over the city council and both local parties, and if so, why such serious intentions in sabotaging their plans?

It's also one reason why I accused him of having ulterior motives for suddenly trying to proselytize us into dropping out.

[J’raxis 270145]

And so does demanding we 'explain' ourselves for being 'immoral' get old very quickly. Since when do 'libertarians' care about morality and being judgmental?

Not intending to start an argument with someone who's on the same side of this debate as I am, but I actually do believe that morality is an important part of libertarian philosophy. It's simply that our morality is extremely simple: The non-aggression principle and/or the golden rule. Beyond that, it's "too each his own"—and that's why people often think libertarians are disinterested in morality or otherwise amoral, because we don't carry around a bookful of values we try to shove down people's throats.

[J’raxis 270145]

...
Discussing the actual topic of that, the number of people who supported those dictators was extremely small, in most cases.  More just went along for the ride out of apathy or an unwillingness to stand up to authority....

Joe

A little history-challenged, are we?

THE GERMAN NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS MARCH 29th 1936
TOTAL QUALIFIED VOTES    45,453,691    
TOTAL VOTES CAST    45,001,489    99.0%
VOTES 'NO' OR INVALID    540,211    
VOTES FOR HITLER'S NSDAP    44,461,278    98.8%

That one dictator was popularly elected doesn't say anything about the rest of them. Most dictators throughout history haven't been particular popular, and had to seize power through force, not electoral politics.

Advocating the repeal of social assistance programs, for example, when there are no private charities in place to take up all the people thrown off of the dole, is incredibly irresponsible and just asking for a huge backlash.

It's also "attacking the poor," as if they were the cause of "the problem" - to do so would make one appear mean-spirited, and it, in fact, would be.

Indeed, and I would say that we actually have a responsibility to do so. If we dismantle social assistance programs, people coming off of them are going to become much poorer in the short run, since those programs were providing food, housing, work, &c., for such people. And, so many of these people are so thoroughly dependent on the government helping them that they probably wouldn't even be able to cope in a free-market world at first. Therefore, we would be in effect the cause of their (increased) poverty, and we'd therefore have a moral responsibility to help them.

... My present goal is to convince as many people as possible that politics does not hold the key to freedom.

So you basically came here with the explicit intention of causing a schism in our movement.

Respectfully, J'rax, you're way out of line with that remark.

It may have been unnecessarily harsh, but I stand by this: Our current movement encompasses both political and non-political action, and people trying to draw off activists from either camp are being divisive—which is going to cause people in both camps to dig in, and become more stubborn and mistrustful of those on the other side. This could ultimately result in the movement breaking in half.

It's interesting that you bring up the LP and how they've gone nowhere for 35 years, and how you see this as justification for dismissing political activism all together. It's interesting because the research director of the NHLA—the core of our political activism—has said the exact same thing on multiple occasions. Except he considers it justification for trying new, and more effective political means.

Past schisms caused by the political side aren't really relevant, except as a cautionary example. What we have now is a huge, new movement of people attacking the system through a variety of means, both political and non-political. Looking at the actual results, I believe both means are effective in their own way. These sides can work together, and complement one another. That's what I'm trying to make people realize.

Hopefully, you can realize that the freedom movement is not monocentrist ...

This has actually been my point all along.

[jaqeboy]

Anyway, Vitruv', you're a breath of fresh air. Welcome aboard. You'll soon find out who on the thread takes on the role of your volunteer personal psychiatrist and learn to take it for what you paid for it 

Let's continue the dialog - only ... I have to get some work done, so maybe later or tomorrow.

[Faber]

OK.  I've had enough.  Welcome to my ignore list, MaineShark!  I was wondering who would be the first.

Oh, the horrors.

Pwned.

That's a pwning?

[Vitruvian]

I wish a certain person (cough, cough) would focus on the issues at hand rather than the abusive argumenta ad hominem.

Moving on...

Here is a collection of articles for the enjoyment of all, comprised largely of anti-participation essays: http://www.strike-the-root.com/vote.html

I used some of the authors' arguments in this thread.

[jaqeboy]

...who on the thread takes on the role of your volunteer personal psychiatrist and learn to take it for what you paid for it 

Oh, right, you already did 

[J’raxis 270145]

OK.  I've had enough.  Welcome to my ignore list, MaineShark!  I was wondering who would be the first.

Oh, the horrors.

Pwned.

That's a pwning?

Putting your opponent on ignore in the middle of a debate is the online equivalent of stomping out of the room in a huff. I can't think of a less gracious way of admitting you lost a debate, honestly... except perhaps resorting to a fistfight...

Pwned.

[Vitruvian]

Putting your opponent on ignore in the middle of a debate is the online equivalent of stomping out of the room in a huff.

He effectively ended the debate by resorting to abusive language.  I am not going to take that sitting down.

[jaqeboy]

I wish a certain person (cough, cough) would focus on the issues at hand rather than the abusive argumenta ad hominem.

Moving on...

Here is a collection of articles for the enjoyment of all, comprised largely of anti-participation essays: http://www.strike-the-root.com/vote.html

I used some of the authors' arguments in this thread.

great link! You already referenced the Voluntaryist, so I assume you're aware of Carl Watner's vast archive.

Someone was referring to voting "None of the Above" at Murphy's the other night, so I mentioned the old "NOTA" movement in California, headed by Sy Leon back in the 60's and 70's. I'm sure there's historical stuff out there for the googling on that. It's interesting how the old ideas come back around.

...and, of course, there's the relatively new "Alliance for the Libertarian Left" at all-left.org. They have a trove of articles linked to from their site, and Kevin Carson's Mutualist.org (I think that's the url) and the blogosphere of the Libertarian Left (all linked to from all-left).

Now, I've got to get to work! Maybe the concentration afforded by the FSP will allow a local revitalizing of the libertarian ideals and activism, after all.

Cheers!